Europe since 1918

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Europe since 1918,

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BOOKS BY
HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS

THE FOUNDATION OF THE OTTOMAN
EMPIRE

THE NEW MAP OF EUROPE

THE NEW MAP OF AFRICA

THE NEW MAP OF ASIA

THE BLACKEST PAGE IN MODERN HIS-
TORY

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POLAND AND

THE NEAR EAST

AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS
EUROPE SINCE 1918

VENIZELOS (in the Modern Statesmen Series)

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE
WORLD WAR

THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE LUXEM-
BOURG

SONGS FROM THE TRENCHES
PARIS REBORN
RIVIERA TOWNS
FRANCE AND OURSELVES
PORTS OF FRANCE

EUROPE SINCE 1918

BY

HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS

Author of "The New Map of Europe," "An Introduction
to World Politics," etc.

THE CENTURY CO.

New York and London

Copyright, 1923, by
The Century Co.

FEINTED IN V. S. 6*

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FOREWORD

The world of 1914, as we see it now, reminds
us of Humpty Dumpty. Having climbed upon its
wall with difficulty, to keep from being involved
in every petty quarrel between nations and coali-
tions, the world had somehow managed to sit
there for a hundred years. The status quo was
revised here and there occasionally by violence.
But the violence did not set back the hands of the
clock, defy economic laws, or, with the excep-
tion of Alsace-Lorraine, make for international
political instability. The developments of the
nineteenth century were a logical growth, the re-
sult of the working out of economic laws, which
means that thoughtful men and strong men led
virile national groups successfully because they
knew how to adapt their foreign policies to, and
shape them by, changing political, economic, and
social world conditions.

None was satisfied with Humpty Dumpty, but,
for fear of the consequences, all bolstered him
up and steadied him whenever he showed signs of
toppling. When he did fall, the first dismay
gave way to rejoicing. Now was our chance to
make him over again into what we wanted him
to be.

vii

viii FOREWORD

We forgot our nursery-rime. A new world or-
der became our battle-cry. The Central Empires
stood for the old order; the Entente Allies were
determined to make a clean sweep of the inter-
national conditions that caused wars. Glibly re-
peated from mouth to mouth "A war to end war"
was the phrase that appealed to our imagination.
How? By emancipating subject races, by resur-
recting submerged nations, by guaranteeing col-
lectively the independence of weak states and the
sanctity of treaties and international law.

We forgot our nursery-rime, I say. Some of
us had no intention of actually letting Humpty
Dumpty fall to pieces, and all of us thought we
could put him together again according to our
own plan and in a way that would suit us. But
when we entered the fray idealistic principles and
formulae became weapons and not goals. Before
November n, 1918, we used our principles solely
to break down the morale of our enemies; and
since the defeat of Germany instead of making
peace we have continued to juggle with our ideals
as we did in war-time. So the world is still ac-
tually at war. The treaties forced upon the van-
quished enemies have not been taken seriously.
One of them has already come up for drastic
revision and the others are not being fully en-
forced.

In justification of their unwillingness to apply
in making peace the principles they had solemnly

FOREWORD

ix

pledged themselves to use as the basis of the
treaties, Entente statesmen had no grounds for
claiming either (a) that the American President
and his nation, late comers in the war, wrongly
interpreted and formulated the Entente war aims,
or (b) that the fulfilment of their promises was
contingent upon American cooperation. Self-
determination, the resurrection of subject na-
tions, the rectification of frontiers to satisfy ir-
redentist aspirations, may have been doctrines
promulgated in a small measure as a gallery ap-
peal to public opinion at home and abroad; but
the main reason was to break down the internal
military unity of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and
Turkey. These doctrines were not inspired by
President Wilson or other American ideologues,
nor were they proclaimed with the idea that the
United States would help to carry them out.

It was not intended that they should be carried
out. But the new forces set loose were too
strong to control. Peoples all over the world
clamored for rights and privileges that it was
the purpose to grant only to peoples that had been
subject to the vanquished powers. To this cause
of confusion, unrest, conspiracy, and open rebel-
lion, were added the falling out of the victors
over the spoils of war and the determination of
France and some of the smaller nations to apply
the law of retaliation to their now defenseless
oppressors.

X

FOREWORD

These are the three reasons why Europe since
1918 has not found peace. The League of Na-
tions is impotent, with or without the United
States as a member, to restore Europe to peace
until the three Furies — Vanity, Greed, and Re-
venge— cease raging.

After the World War the movement in the
United States to induce the American people to
underwrite the Paris peace settlement did not suc-
ceed. The overwhelming rejection of their pan-
acea for the ills of the world did not discour-
age the supporters of the Versailles Covenant.
After four years they are returning to the cam-
paign for American participation in the Versailles
League. Since they cannot disguise the serious-
ness of conditions in Europe as the fourth year
of the functioning of the League of Nations
draws to a close, the earnest League propagan-
dists, to get away from the remorseless logic of
"By their fruits ye shall know them," now assert
that Europe's troubles are our fault. We re-
fused to ratify the treaty and enter the League
of Nations ; ergo, all these things have happened.

The writer, an observer and student of Euro-
pean affairs for fifteen years, has never had an
ax to grind or theories and national causes to
advance and champion. In the Near East dur-
ing the years leading up to the World War, in
Paris during the World War and the Peace Con-
ference, and following the aftermath of the war

FOREWORD

since the treaties were signed, his sole ambition
has been to record what he has observed. He
is not pro-anything. He feels, as 'he did when he
wrote "The New Map of Europe" in 1914, "The
New Map of Africa" in 191 6, and "The New
Map of Asia" in 1919, that a host of people are
seeking an unbiased presentation of contempo-
rary events, so that sentimentality will not ob-
scure common sense in forming their opinion on
the important problem of America's place in the
world and America's duty toward the world.
We must know how things actually are in order
that we may help effectively to make them what
they ought to be.

Herbert Adams Gibbons.
Princeton, September, 1923.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Armistice of November ii, 1918 3

II The Preliminaries of the Peace Con-
ference 18

III The Peace Conference at Paris . . 37

IV The Main Features of the Treaty of

Versailles 71

V The Failure of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles to Win Popular Approval 94

VI New Light on the Tragedy of Paris . 1 1 1

VII The Treaties of St.-Germain and Tri-
anon 119

VIII The Balkan Settlement and Its Ef-
fect upon Bulgaria and Albania . 133

IX The Proposed Devolution of the Otto-
man Empire 148

X The Internal Evolution and Foreign
Policy of Russia under the So-
viets 167

XI The New Baltic Republics .... 205

XII The Resurrection of Poland . . .231

XIII The Creation of Czechoslovakia . . 257

XIV The Evolution of Serbia into Jugo-

slavia 273

XV Greater Rumania 295

XVI The Tables Turned on Hungary . . 317
XVII Austria without Her Provinces . . 330

xiii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVIII From Giolittj to Mussolini in Italy . 346

XIX Belgium after the World War . . 368

XX Germany from 1918 to 1923 .... 386

XXI The Expansion and Debacle of Greece 415

XXII The Turkish Nationalist Movement 442

XXIII The Entente Powers and the Ques-

tion of the Straits 469

XXIV The Eastern Question before the

Lausanne Conference .... 491

XXV The Disarmament Question before

the Washington Conference . 505

XXVI The Continuation Conferences from

1920 to 1923 519

XXVII The Unsheathed Sword of France . 544

XXVIII France and Belgium in the Ruhr . . 561

XXIX Interallied Debts 585

XXX The Next Moves in the Interna-
tional Game 599

Index 611

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The great World War, which has just closed, was born
of the feeling on the part of the Germans that they had
not been given their share of the world's loot. So far
as it is possible to see, the struggle has taught us nothing,
and we are to go on sowing dragons' teeth.

Melville E. Stone.
General Manager of The Associated Press,
in "Collier's Weekly," March 26, 192 1.

The war was not a deliberate crime. It was something
that flowed out of the conditions of European life. The
Treaty of Versailles was a voluntary destruction of civi-
lization. French civilization depends upon European
civilization, and there will be no civilization in Europe
until the Treaty of Versailles is revised.

Anatole France.

Undoubtedly we shall from this time forward have a
much more adequate conception of the essential unity of
the whole story of mankind, and a keener realization of
the fact that all its factors must be weighed and appraised
if any of them are to be accurately estimated and under-
stood. I feel strongly that such a broader view of
history, if it can be planted in the community's mind
through the efforts of educators and writers, will con-
tribute greatly to uphold the hands and strengthen the
efforts of those who have to deal with the great problems
of human destiny, particularly with those of preserving
peace and outlawing war.

Warren G. Harding.

EUROPE SINCE 1918

CHAPTER I

THE ARMISTICE OF NOVEMBER
ii, 1918

unexpected change in the fortunes of Ger-

many. In London and Paris it was not
believed that the crash would come so soon.
British and French political and journalistic cir-
cles were discussing the all-absorbing subject of
Foch's forward movement on the western front.
During the war, already lasting over four years,
there had been so little of military victories to
record and comment upon that none seemed to be
thinking of the inevitable day of Germany's col-
lapse. The armistices with Bulgaria, Turkey,
and Austria-Hungary were regarded as military
agreements, and the newspapers were silent about
post-armistice events in southeastern Europe and
the Ottoman Empire.

Public opinion, therefore, was unprepared for
Germany's direct and definite demand for an ar-

brought a sweeping and

3

EUROPE SINCE 1918

mistice based upon the acceptance by all belliger-
ents of President Wilson's peace program.

The speech of President Wilson at the open-
ing of the Fourth Liberty Loan Campaign on Sep-
tember 27 was made the day after the collapse of
Bulgaria. The superiority of numbers had al-
ready begun to tell against Germany on the west-
ern front. The President of the United States
weighed fully every word uttered on that occa-
sion. It was clear that the enemies of Germany
had reached no understanding as to their attitude
in case Germany should express the willingness to
lay down her arms and confess that she was
beaten. When, two days later, Bulgaria signed
an armistice, and the Germans knew they could
no longer hope for a drawn battle, it was excel-
lent strategy to make the request for peace in
the form of a direct appeal to President Wilson
in which the Imperial German Government ex-
pressed its willingness to make peace "on the
basis of President Wilson's Fourteen Points and
subsequent discourses, notably that of September

27"

When the news of this appeal was published
in Paris, a French statesman who had been at the
head of the Government at one time during the
war said to me: "France is as unprepared for
peace as she was for war. In 1914 we had no
definite understanding with any other nation than

4

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

Russia. You remember how nervous we were
about England's attitude during those awful first
three days. In 1918, with the military victory
ours, we and our numerous allies have no terms
of peace, agreed upon in common by us all, to im-
pose upon our enemies. It looks as if we shall
soon have power to dictate peace, but we are not
ready to state to the enemy — and to our own peo-
ple, for that matter — what terms we propose to
dictate. Nor is there any overwhelming public
sentiment to guide us. The speeches of your
Wilson have had a splendid effect in demoralizing
the Germans. For this reason, it would have
been folly for any French or British statesman
to differ publicly with Mr. Wilson. We must not
give German statesmen and generals ammunition
to use in fighting the demoralization that is so
evident on their front as well as in their rear.
On the other hand, because of this silence, we are
in danger of being stampeded into agreeing to
accept Mr. Wilson's ideas of peace, which are al-
together ridiculous."

Unpreparedness for peace was not due to lack
of foresight on the part of Entente statesmen.
Up to the end, Germany was a redoubtable enemy
who hoped for a military stalemate through lack
of harmony among the members of the coalition.
She knew that the nations banded against her had
only one common interest, her defeat. The En-

5

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tente Powers themselves realized that they were
not going to think alike about terms of peace,
as they were interested in the war in varying
degrees and for different reasons. So they
wisely stuck by the old adage, "First catch your
hare!" In order to catch the hare, the enemies
of Germany had been going the limit in abandon-
ment of prejudices, sacrifice of pride, change of
national habits, and repression of national in-
stincts. Mutual forbearance was taxed to the
uttermost in keeping up and coordinating the mil-
itary effort. Loans were arranged without dis-
cussion as to interest charges and method of
amortization. The coalition would not have
stood the additional test of having to try to agree
upon a common peace policy.

The demand for the armistice came too soon
after the tide had turned. With the danger of
weakening or disrupting military effort by fric-
tions and misunderstanding scarcely behind them,
the members of the Supreme Council at Versailles
were suddenly confronted with the problem of
making an armistice that contained definite ob-
ligations as to the general tenor of the peace set-
tlement. The Allies had had no time to work out
a common program to present to the conquered
foes. The embarrassment at Versailles was
great. Every one was willing to end the war im-
mediately to save further bloodshed and expense.

6

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

But none was willing to connect the question of
an armistice with that of peace. And yet the in-
quiry in Germany's demand for an armistice could
not be ignored !

The Turkish and Bulgarian armistices had
been imposed without involving the principles of
the peace settlement. They were concluded with-
out the participation of the United States. But
in the Austro-Hungarian and German armistices
we entered directly. Numerous questions arose
which compromised the interests or admitted the
pretensions of each of the Allies. How make an
armistice with Austria-Hungary without taking
into consideration Italia Irredenta and the con-
flicting aspirations of the nations we had promised
to free from the Hapsburg yoke? How make
an armistice with Germany without defining our
attitude toward British naval and colonial ambi-
tions and French contentions as to adequate guar-
antees and reparations ?

These considerations put the American dele-
gates at Versailles in an unenviable and delicate
position. The general lines of American policy
were already announced. When we entered the
war, President Wilson drew a distinction between
the German Government and the German people,
a distinction heartily approved at the time by the
major portion of the American press and by
American public opinion. In official speeches

7

EUROPE SINCE 1918

and official notes, specific statements had been
made, reiterated, and elaborated concerning the
objects for which we were fighting and the prin-
ciples we intended to follow in reestablishing
peace. It could not be argued that new condi-
tions had arisen to change our attitude. The
United States came into the war a long time after
its issues were clearly defined. From the begin-
ning we had recognized that Germany and
Austria-Hungary were the aggressors. We
were aware of their violations of international
law, of their cruelties on land and sea, of the mar-
tyrdom imposed by them upon Belgium, North-
ern France, and Serbia. We knew all about the
destruction wrought by their armies, airplanes,
and submarines. We had been stirred with
indignation by the Armenian massacres. We
knew their ideas of peace, had they been vic-
torious. For the treaties of Bucharest and
Brest-Litovsk had been signed and published.

No argument or explanation that has been
brought to bear to justify the treaties imposed
upon our enemies at Paris is built upon facts that
have come to light since the armistice. The re-
sponsibility of Germany and the heinousness of
her crimes were known and felt by the members
of the Supreme Council at Versailles, to whom
President Wilson referred Germany's request for

an armistice. To the Supreme Council Mr. Wil-

8

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

son left the decision. Were the Entente Pow-
ers willing to grant Germany an armistice with
the understanding that after she had rendered
herself defenseless peace would be concluded "on
the basis of the Fourteen Points and President
Wilson's subsequent discourses, notably that of
September 27, 1918"? It was not the American
Government that had suggested this understand-
ing as to the nature of the peace. Nor did the
American Government attempt to influence the
decision of the Supreme Council. Marshal Foch
and his advisers had it in their power to reject
the German plea unconditionally and continue the
war. Of all the armies in the field that of the
United States was the least willing to quit. Or
the Supreme Council could have declared openly
its inability to agree upon an eventual peace
treaty along Wilsonian lines. This need not have
been done baldly. Diplomatic formulae could
have been found to make the rejection non-
committal, thus avoiding a frank declaration of
disagreement with American ideals.

Colonel House and General Bliss, enjoying the
confidence of President Wilson, were in a position
to point out to their colleagues what they all
knew, that during eighteen months the will and
energy of a hundred million Americans had been
concentrated upon bringing Germany to her
knees, and that it was because of the American

9

EUROPE SINCE 1918

effort that Germany was suing for peace. The
events of October, 1918, were not a miracle.
They were not due to an unexpected turn in the
fortunes of battle. For until the American
armies in France had passed the million mark
Germany was able to help her allies and at the
same time to hold the position she had established
in France and Belgium in 19 14. Were not the
defection of Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria-
Hungary and the retreat of the German army
from France and Belgium the result primarily
of the uninterrupted growth of the American Ex-
peditionary Force? Was it not also true that
President Wilson had simply taken Entente
statesmen at their word, relying upon the sin-
cerity of their own definition of their objects in
the war, when he elaborated his Fourteen Points ?
What was more natural, then, than that the Ger-
man demand for an armistice should come
through Washington and be coupled with the con-
dition that peace be made in conformity with the
avowed common ideals of the victors?

But our delegates at Versailles showed admira-
ble tact and diplomatic correctness. It was true
that American intervention had turned the scales
in favor of the Entente. But it was equally true
that our associates had born the brunt of the bat-
tle for three years without our military aid, hold-
ing the Central Empires in check by sacrificing the

10

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

best of their blood. Countries invaded and rav-
aged, civilian population maltreated, cities and
factories and mines destroyed, debts beyond be-
lief— all this had been suffered to make possible
the common victory. The popular resentment
against Germany was as great in the United
States as in Europe. We were holding no brief
for Germany. If the Supreme Council should
be of the opinion that it would be best to continue
the war and go to Berlin, the United States would
not stand in the way. It was intimated that we
were willing to do our part. No pressure of any
kind, direct or indirect, was exercised by the
American Government or its representatives at
Versailles to induce the Entente Powers to grant
Germany's plea.

The accusations that have since been freely
made to the effect that the United States pro-
voked and encouraged the German demand for
an armistice and insisted that the Wilsonian pro-
gram be adopted as a basis of the Paris settlement
in the pre-armistice negotiations are unsupported
by any evidence. Volumes have been written to
defend or explain the armistice with Germany.
It is popularly regretted as premature and as due
to a mistaken idealism inspired by Americans.
The factors in the decision of the Supreme Coun-
cil are not obscure. Italy did not want the war
to go on any longer; her objectives had been

11

EUROPE SINCE 1918

gained by the antecedent armistice of November
3 with Austria-Hungary, and her statesmen were
bent upon using all their troops to occupy "un-
redeemed Italy" and the Dalmatian islands and
coast. Great Britain and France were more ex-
hausted, materially and morally, than they cared
to admit. If Germany accepted the naval and
military clauses of the armistice they had in mind
to propose, it would be foolish to continue to ex-
haust themselves.

Given the attitude of Italy, with which it was
impossible to find fault, British and French
statesmen and generals were virtually unanimous
in believing that, if they could get what they
wanted by the terms of the armistice, carrying
the war into Germany would be a game not worth
the candle. For they were not at all sure that
a speedy military victory was possible. Another
winter of fighting would involve tremendous sac-
rifices. Discontent in the rear had to be reck-
oned with. And, above all, it might happen that
the final act in the great drama would find the
American army holding the center of the stage.
This would be disastrous to French and British
prestige and would give President Wilson the
upper hand in formulating the peace treaties.
As one eminent Englishman put it when I was
talking over the situation with him the first week

12

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

of November: "There is that parable about the
laborers in the vineyard. We know well enough
that Berlin ought to be the end of the day. But
if we work till nightfall, you, who came in at the
eleventh hour, would get the same reward as the
rest of us — perhaps all the pennies !" 1

The pre-armistice agreement was carefully con-
sidered. There was nothing hasty about the ac-
tion of the Supreme Council. The British and
French knew just what they were doing. The
British excluded Mr. Wilson's point on the free-
dom of the seas. This we agreed to. The
French and Belgians insisted upon a definition
of the stipulation that "the invaded territories

1 Since writing this chapter, my attention has been called to
a remarkably clear and frank article contributed by General
Tasker H. Bliss, American military member of the Supreme
Council, in the September, 1922, "Journal of International Law."
General Bliss quotes copiously from his own notes and cor-
respondence to show that the Allied Premiers had begun to
discuss the armistice on October 8, and that the French, Brit-
ish, and Italian military advisers were subject to higher political
authority in fixing the terms of the armistice. General Bliss
protested on purely military grounds. He believed that whether
the Germans consented or not, no armistice should be proposed
that did not render the enemy immediately impotent. The
Entente Powers, according to General Bliss, allowed the mili-
tary and naval terms of peace, which could have been communi-
cated to the Germans within a few weeks after the armistice,
to be withheld until the final treaty was ready seven months
later. The unmilitary character of the armistice and peace ne-
gotiations was due to the fact that the Entente Powers were
"out for loot," as the General puts it, and were constantly sus-
picious of one another. From the beginning there were pro-
grams— but no common program!

13

EUROPE SINCE 1918

must be restored as well as evacuated and freed."

On November 5, 1918, the Entente Powers
sent to Washington the following message:

The Allied Governments have given careful considera-
tion to the correspondence which has passed between the
President of the United States and the German Govern-
ment.

Subject to the qualifications which follow, they declare
their willingness to make peace with the Government of
Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the Presi-
dent's Address to Congress of January 8, 1918, and the
principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent Ad-
dresses. They must point out, however, that Clause 2,
relating to what is usually described as the freedom of the
seas, is open to various interpretations, some of which
they could not accept. They must, therefore, reserve to
themselves complete freedom on this subject when they
enter the Peace Conference.

Further, in the conditions of peace laid down in his
Address to Congress of January 8, 19 18, the President
declared that the invaded territories must be restored as
well as evacuated and freed, and the Allied Governments
feel that no doubt ought to be allowed to exist as to
what this provision implies. By it they understand that
compensation will be made by Germany for all damage
done to the civilian population of the Allies, and their
property, by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea,
and from the air.

This answer was immediately communicated
to Germany by the United States. In an accom-
panying note, Mr. Lansing said:

14

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

I advised you that the Presidenc had transmitted his
correspondence with the German authorities to the Gov-
ernments with which the Government of the United
States is associated as a belligerent, with the suggestion
that, if those Governments were disposed to effect peace
upon the terms and principles indicated, their military-
advisers and the military advisers of the United States
be asked to submit to the Governments associated against
Germany the necessary terms of such an armistice as
would fully protect the interest of the peoples involved,
and ensure to the associated Governments the unre-
stricted power to safeguard and enforce the details of the
peace to which the German Government had agreed, pro-
vided they deemed such an armistice possible from the
military point of view.

I am instructed by the President to say that he is in
agreement with the interpretation set forth in the last
paragraph of the memorandum above quoted.

I am further instructed by the President to request
you [he was writing to the Swiss Minister at Washington
through whom the negotiations were carried on] to notify
the German Government that Marshal Foch has been
authorized by the Government of the United States and
the Allied Governments to receive properly accredited
representatives of the German Government, and to com-
municate to them the terms of an armistice.

On November 6 an armistice commission was
appointed by Germany, which received the Allied
military conditions at the Allied General Head-
quarters on November 8. Seventy-two hours
were given for acceptance or rejection. At 5
A. m. on November 1 1 the armistice that ended

15

EUROPE SINCE 1918

the World War was signed at Rethondes in the
Forest of Compiegne.

The armistice provided for the cessation of
hostilities at eleven o'clock on the day of signa-
ture; the evacuation of Belgium, northern
France, Luxemburg, and Alsace-Lorraine in fif-
teen days; repatriation of civilian and military
prisoners; abandonment of a large quantity of
artillery and airplanes; evacuation of the left
bank of the Rhine, with three bridge-heads on the
right bank, within a month; evacuation of the
countries occupied in eastern and southeastern
Europe; annulment of the treaties of Bucharest
and Brest-Litovsk; evacuation of German forces
in East Africa; reparation of damages; restitu-
tion of money and securities taken from Belgium;
surrender of Russian and Rumanian gold to the
Allies; delivery of all submarines and most of
the German Navy in Allied ports ; release of Rus-
sian war-ships and all merchant-ships; and can-
cellation of restrictions placed upon neutral ship-
ping and trade by the German Government and
private German firms. Two additional stipula-
tions of prime importance in bringing pressure
to bear upon Germany were that the blockade of
Germany be maintained throughout the Peace
Conference and that there be no reciprocity in the
liberation of prisoners of war.

The acceptance of the armistice terminated the

16

THE ARMISTICE OF 1918

hostilities and prevented the invasion of Ger-
many. It left Germany defenseless. Under no
circumstances would she be able to renew the war.
For the sake of avoiding worse evils the German
Government signed these humiliating conditions.
On the other hand, the Germans felt that they
gained the assurance of a peace such as President
Wilson had outlined, in which, to use the Presi-
dent's own words, "the impartial justice meted
out must involve no discrimination between those
to whom we wish to be just and those to whom
we do not wish to be just: it must be a justice
that plays no favorites and knows no standard
but the equal rights of the several peoples con-
cerned."

What the Germans failed to grasp was the fact
that the long and bitter struggle had drawn their
enemies down to their level, and that their own
faithlessness was going to be met by a desire
for revenge on the part of those who had orig-
inally drawn the sword in the defense of the
pledged word among nations.

17

CHAPTER II

THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE
PEACE CONFERENCE

WHEN the wild joy of the armistice cele-
bration had spent itself, public opinion
in the victorious countries reacted
against the terms of the armistice, against the
very fact that an armistice had been signed. It
was recognized that there had been no clean-cut,
unquestioned military victory, such as generally
decides the fortunes of a war. The enemy's
front was unbroken: he was still on the soil of
France and had not been driven out of Belgium.
The armistice conditions provided for a gradual
withdrawal from France, Belgium, and Alsace-
Lorraine, and the gradual occupation by the vic-
tors of the Rhine provinces and bridge-heads.
The German army retired with artillery and arms
and other war material, and the method of ad-
vance of the victors deprived the armies of ap-
pearing dramatically as liberators and conquerors.
And then there were too many victors ! The de-
tails of the advance were as meticulously ar-
ranged among allies as between the allies and the
enemy.

18

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

It was felt that Germany, after four years of
being the top dog, had suddenly managed to "get
out from under" before the storm broke that
would give her army and her people a taste of
the medicine they had been administering in big
doses ever since 1914. Consequently there was a
determination that crying "Kamerad !" was not
going to enable Germany to avoid the disagree-
able consequences of losing the war. There was
far more hatred, bitterness, resentment, than
there would have been had the Allied armies
beaten the Germans in the field, chased them back
to their own country, and secured an uncondi-
tional surrender on German soil. The very fact
of so much hatred after the armistice indicated
that the military superiority of the victors had
not been sufficiently demonstrated. For hatred
is born of fear and nourished by fear. After a
fight to the finish, the sane man with normal in-
stincts simply cannot hate. If he knows that he
has knocked out his opponent, his natural instinct
is to extend a hand good-naturedly to help the
other fellow to his feet. No matter what the op-
ponent may have done, he is considered to have
paid the penalty by the punishment he received
in the losing fight.

The trouble with the world in November, 1918,
was that there had been no knock-out. More
than that, Germany had been worsted by a coali-

19

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tion which was doomed to disruption after the
righting was over, unless all its members should
be willing to continue to grant to one another
equal opportunities and privileges and assume for
one another equal burdens and responsibilities,
just as they had done during the war.

When the clamor arose to make Germany pay,
Entente statesmen rode with the tide of hysteri-
cal indignation instead of trying to stem it.
They did not point out from the beginning, as they
should have done, that Germany had not made an
unconditional surrender, throwing herself upon
the mercy of her conquerors. However ignoble
the motive that prompted it, her submission had
been contingent upon the definite promise that
a certain kind of peace, very clearly defined, would
be made with her. In return for the pre-armistice
concessions, the Allies had transformed suddenly
a potential into an actual victory without having
to shed further blood for the liberation of France
and Belgium or to wrest Alsace-Lorraine from
Germany. When Germany threw up the sponge,
allowed portions of her territory to be occupied,
surrendered most of her naval and much of her
military equipment, and agreed to release pris-
oners of war without reciprocity, she thought
that she was letting the victors discount their
future military triumph by waiving their right
to a victors' peace. Wilsonian ideas had spread

20

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

all over Germany and had helped to break down
the morale of the army.

The world was so weary of war that strong
men in Allied countries, men with vision and a
sense of honor, might have been able to carry
public opinion with them in favor of a durable
world peace. But there were no such men in
Europe in positions of authority, and by going
personally to the Peace Conference President
Wilson sacrificed the prestige and influence
which, exercised from afar, might have enabled
him to become and remain master of the situ-
ation.

Two months elapsed between the armistice and
the opening of peace negotiations. During that
time the victorious powers worked out the de-
tails of the military occupation of German ter-
ritory. The French took over Alsace-Lorraine
as an integral part of France, restoring, so far
as the Germans and the outside world were con-
cerned, the status quo of 1870. The victors had
agreed to allow France a free hand in reannex-
ing her "lost provinces." What problems France
had to face were to be solved as a purely internal
French affair, and so the French went ahead to
change the regime without waiting for a treaty
of peace. The details of the military occupation
of German territory, with the three bridge-heads
on the right bank of the Rhine, were worked out

21

EUROPE SINCE 1918

among British and French and Americans, who
established their headquarters respectively at Co-
logne, Mainz, and Coblenz. The German Gov-
ernment had no part in arranging for the Allied
occupation. It was a military affair, and all or-
ders were given directly to the local authorities in
each of the zones.

Allied prisoners of war were released. The
Germans surrendered their fleet. Allied commis-
sions, to watch over the fulfilment of the armis-
tice terms, were sent to all the defeated countries.
For general questions affecting Germany, an
Armistice Commission was created, with head-
quarters at Spa in Belgium.

Allied statesmen began to study the question
of securing the confidence of the electorates and
parliaments of their respective countries, without
which they would be unable to act as plenipoten-
tiaries. This was an essential consideration; for
the executive power in Europe, unlike that of the
United States, has no fixed tenure of office and is
always dependent upon a parliamentary vote of
confidence. In the two months between the ar-
mistice and the conference, the statesmen of the
European powers, large and small, had to secure
a parliamentary mandate, approving their gen-
eral policy at the approaching conference.

As soon as the military terms of the armistice
were fulfilled, so that the defeated peoples were

22

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

no longer in a position to renew the war, an un-
compromising attitude was adopted toward the
Germans and their allies. The pre-armistice
agreement was ignored. The five enemy states
were told that they would have no part in the
Peace Conference. The victors were to decide
upon the terms of the treaties, which would then
be communicated to the vanquished. In the
meantime the food blockade was to be maintained
and enemy prisoners of war held. The only deal-
ings between the governments of the victors and
of the vanquished were in connection with the
measures decided upon to carry out the condi-
tions of the armistices. The peace negotiations
were to take the form simply of adjusting and
harmonizing the conflicting ideas and ambitions
and programs of the victorious powers, and were
to be no concern of the defeated nations. Our
enemies were regarded as criminals, to be ar-
raigned and sentenced by men acting simulta-
neously as judges, jurors, prosecutors, and jailers.
Right to counsel and right of appeal were alike
denied.

Austrians and Hungarians were in a different
situation from that of Germans, Bulgarians, and
Turks. The two countries of the Dual Mon-
archy, in which they had been the dominant peo-
ples, were separated at the time of the armistice.
Far-reaching decisions had already been made be-

23

EUROPE SINCE 1918

fore the Peace Conference met. The treaties
dealing with the future of the Hapsburg domin-
ions would take into account faits accomplis: (1)
the political separation of Austria and Hungary ;
(2) the annexation to Italy of regions denned in
the secret Treaty of London of 1915; (3) the
resurrection of Poland; (4) the creation of
Czechoslovakia; (5) the aggrandizement of Ser-
bia and Rumania. De facto recognition of inde-
pendence was granted to Poland and Czechoslo-
vakia, and also to the Hedjaz, detached from the
Ottoman Empire. These three new states,
whose belligerency had been recognized as a war
measure before the end of hostilities, although
boundaries were not denned, were invited to par-
ticipate in the Peace Conference.

The organization of the conference was under-
taken by the four Entente Powers, France, Great
Britain, Japan, and Italy (who had signed the
Pact of London, obligating themselves not to make
a separate peace), in agreement with the United
States. It was decided to make a distinction be-
tween the "powers with general interests" and the
"powers with particular interests." The former
were the United States, the British Empire,
France, Italy, and Japan ; and the latter were Bel-
gium, Brazil, the British Dominions and India,
China, Cuba, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hedjaz,

Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland,

24

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Siam, and Czechoslo-
vakia. The great powers were to have five dele-
gates; Belgium, Brazil, and Serbia, three; China,
Greece, Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal, Rumania,
Siam, and Czechoslovakia, two; Cuba, Guate-
mala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, and
Panama, one; while the British Dominions and
India were allowed two delegates, with the excep-
tion of New Zealand, which was to have one.
Four powers that had broken off diplomatic rela-
tions with Germany, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and
Uruguay, were granted one delegate each "in the
sittings at which questions concerning them are
discussed." Provision was made for the possi-
bility of admitting Montenegro, but the question
of Russia was left to be determined by the con-
ference.

The most important of the preliminary meas-
ures was the one which proposed to limit the de-
cision upon the matters of settlement to a central
commission, on which the "five powers with gen-
eral interests" were alone represented. The va-
rious details were to be studied by commissions
of fifteen, two members each for the great powers
and five members representing all the other
powers together, which were to report to the
central commission. The Supreme War Council
at Versailles, under Marshal Foch, was to con-
tinue to meet during the Peace Conference to deal

25

EUROPE SINCE 1918

with the enforcement of the armistices and with
military problems concerning the enemy powers
and the regions whose status the Peace Confer-
ence was to settle.

There was something to be said both for the
exclusion of enemy powers from the Peace Con-
ference and for the exclusion of the "powers with
particular interests" from the central commission.
The victors of the World War realized only too
well that they would have great difficulty in recon-
ciling their own ambitions and in agreeing upon
any common program of peace, and they did not
purpose to have Germany repeating the role of
France in the Conference of Vienna a hundred
years earlier. With delegates from thirty coun-
tries, some of which were parts of the British
Empire and other states that had only a technical
right to be represented, it was reasonable to ex-
pect that the organizers of the conference would
adopt regulations to make it a feasible working
body.

Signs were not lacking to indicate that it was
going to be hard enough for the great powers to
agree upon peace terms, even if they should be
free from the influence of enemy intrigues pit-
ting one against another and from being con-
stantly hampered and blocked by the exaggerated
and rival claims of the smaller states, especially
those created or greatly enlarged by the war.

26

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

And Paris, which had suffered so greatly for.
more than four years under the constant menace
of German bombardments (and even of capture),
was a poor place to hold a conference called to-
gether to establish a durable world peace. The
atmosphere was surcharged with bitterness and
prejudices. The burnt child continued to dread
the fire after the fire had been extinguished.
French internal politics centered in Paris, which
was also the home of France's economic interests
and of the French army.

Before the conference met, no effort had been
made to create a judicial attitude toward the great
problems of peace. Posters on the walls as well
as the newspapers kept the French keyed up to
a degree of bitterness, tinged with apprehension,
that made logical and constructive thinking im-
possible. This state of mind was natural, when
one considers what the French had gone through
and that complete victory over Germany came as
a miracle to the hard-pressed French and their
allies. But it was not conducive to the triumph
of what Mr. Wilson called the American Gov-
ernment's "interpretation of its own duty with
regard to peace: First, the impartial justice
meted out must involve no discrimination between
those to whom we wish to be just and those to
whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a
justice that plays no favorites and knows no

27

EUROPE SINCE 1918

standards but the equal rights of the several peo-
ples concerned."

The demands of France against Germany and
her allies had been outlined in the first year of
the war as follows : ( 1 ) punishment of those re-
sponsible for the war; (2) reparation for losses
during the war; (3) guaranties against future
aggression on the part of Germany and her allies.
In addition to these war aims, French statesmen
consistently announced the determination of
France to support similar demands by France's
allies and to sign no treaty of peace that did not
emancipate the nationalities subject to the en-
emies of France. In the course of the war the
French Government entered into agreements with
several of the Allies, justifying these as measures
that seemed necessary to bring the war to a suc-
cessful conclusion. After the Russian revolu-
tion the French Government promised the people
to safeguard French investments in Russia, which
amounted to over four billions of dollars, almost
all representing little investments of peasants
and tradespeople. In preliminary discussions
with President Wilson, Premier Clemenceau de-
clared the willingness of France to adopt the
American program in its entirety, including the
society of nations ; but he made it clear that this
willingness should not be construed as the aban-
donment of the threefold program: "sanctions,

28

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

reparations, garanties." Nor could France go
back upon her signature to treaties and her prom-
ise to her own people.

Believing that an idealistic program for peace,
such as President Wilson outlined, must be sub-
ordinated to the two considerations of security
and prosperity for their exhausted country,
Premier Clemenceau and Foreign Secretary
Pichon warned President Wilson, in speeches be-
fore the Chamber of Deputies in the last week of
December, that they were going into the Peace
Conference with definite obligations, first toward
their own people, and then toward their allies —
obligations that transcended the Wilsonian prin-
ciples when conflict arose. France had no inten-
tion of subordinating her particular national in-
terests to what Mr. Wilson called general world
interests. Bound by definite pledges, she could
not do so if she wanted to. Did not Mr. Wilson
lealize how greatly France had suffered?
Neither then nor later has any French statesmen
admitted that the idealism of President Wilson
might have had as its justification the literal ac-
ceptance of their own declarations and promises
during the war. Nor has any French statesmen
admitted the validity of the pre-armistice agree-
ment with Germany. From the moment the war
ended down to the present time the French at-
titude has been that the victors were amply ius-

29

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tified in whatever steps they took because, had
Germany been victorious, she would have done
the same.

Discarding entirely the Wilsonian principles as
the basis for peace, Premier Clemenceau told the
Chamber of Deputies that he was still a partisan
of the "balance of power" to be maintained by
alliances, and that if the nations banded against
Germany had been allies in 19 14 Germany would
not have dared to attack France. He admitted
frankly that he could not discuss with the Cham-
ber the Government's peace ideas because he had
a maximum and a minimum program and was
going into the conference to get for France all he
could. This was an answer — a gauntlet of de-
fiance thrown down, if you will — to Mr. Wilson's
Manchester speech four days earlier, when the
American President declared that the "balance
of power" was an exploded theory, that the
United States would enter into no alliance
which was not an alliance of all nations for
common good, and that the creation of a
new world required new methods of making
peace.

M. Clemenceau did not have to appeal to the
people. As the principal artisan of victory, who
had deserved well of the republic, he was the
national hero. Despite wide-spread dissatisfac-
tion among the politicians over matters of in-

30

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

ternal administration, the people were so united
in their demand for a punitive peace, which "the
Tiger" embodied, that no party leader dared con-
test his position.

It was otherwise in England. Mr. Lloyd
George had come into power during the war by
deserting his old chief, Premier Asquith, and
forming a coalition cabinet, dependent upon a
combined Liberal and Conservative parliamen-
tary majority. The coalition had been a war
measure, born of the feeling that the Asquith
Government had been making a mess of the con-
duct of the war, despite Mr. Asquith's inclusion
in his cabinet of Conservatives and Laborites.
Immediately the war was over, it was necessary
to go to the country for a new parliament. For
a British delegation could not have represented
Great Britain adequately in the Peace Conference
with Parliament in so confused a state as to party
lines. By common agreement Parliament was
dissolved on November 25, and December 14 was
fixed as polling-day. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr.
Bonar Law, and Mr. Barnes, representing the
three parties, decided to stand together and ask
the country to return Coalition members at the
General Election. The Labor Party, however,
did not agree with Mr. Barnes. They demanded
a peace of justice, not a peace of revenge. A
group of Liberals, headed by Mr. Asquith, de-

31

EUROPE SINCE 1918

cided to put candidates in the field, in opposition
to the Coalition.

The British electorate was asked to choose be-
tween two programs for the Peace Conference:
a victor's peace, which was supported by the Con-
servatives and Coalition Liberals; and a Wil-
sonian peace, which was supported by the Inde-
pendent Liberals and the Laborites.

It is not too much to say that the main lines
of the future treaty with Germany were settled
by the verdict of the British election. Mr. Lloyd
George and his associates, against their own bet-
ter judgment and convictions, appealed to the pas-
sions and prejudices of the masses to secure a
parliamentary majority. Since both Mr. Lloyd
George and Mr. Bonar Law have repeatedly re-
pudiated by acts, speeches, and written statements
their own policies and arguments advanced in
December, 191 8, there could be no doubt of the
fairness and accuracy of this assertion.

On December 10 Mr. Lloyd George summed up
the Coalition program in the following points of
treaty policy: (1) trial of the Kaiser; (2) pun-
ishment of those responsible for atrocities; (3)
fullest indemnities from Germany. Speaking at
Bristol the next day Mr. Lloyd George, on the eve
of the election, declared that "we propose to de-
mand the whole cost of the war from Germany,"
that this was "an absolute right," and that a

32

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

financial committee appointed by the British Cab-
inet believed that all the costs of the war could
be extracted from Germany. After his trium-
phant return to power Mr. Lloyd George ex-
plained that the sole guilt and responsibility
of Germany for the war was to be the basis of
the peace treaty, and not Mr. Wilson's princi-
ples. Nearly a year after the Treaty of Ver-
sailles was signed (in May, 1920) he repeated
that the Treaty of Versailles was built upon
the assumption of Germany's sole guilt and had
no other jurisdiction. The practicability of try-
ing the Kaiser and of extracting from Germany
the total expenses of the war was not questioned
by responsible British statesmen of the Coalition
party until long after the Treaty of Versailles
had been made.

Italy's entrance into the war in 191 5 had been
prompted by considerations of national self-inter-
est, safeguarded in the secret Treaty of London,
and recognized in the zones of occupation, pro-
vided for in the armistice of November 3, 1918,
that had been the death-warrant of the Hapsburg
Empire. But Italy was not satisfied with all that
had been offered her to abandon her neutrality.
The propaganda for the possession of Fiume and
for rendering Greater Serbia innocuous, eco-
nomically and militarily, had already assumed
formidable proportions before the Peace Confer-

33

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ence met. Italy did not consider that the pre-
armistice agreement with Germany affected in any
way her claims, which were signally at variance
with President Wilson's ideas. She had been in
the war two years longer than the United States,
and the Treaty of London constituted a sacred
international obligation. Had not the Allies gone
to war to fight for the sanctity of treaties ? Sim-
ilarly, Rumania's intervention had been bought
by definite promises of territorial expansion, set
down in a treaty. Japan had no secret under-
standing with the other Entente Powers until
191 7. But when the Japanese Government real-
ized that the United States was going to become a
belligerent, its diplomats at the Entente capitals
secured a written agreement giving Japan full
rights to be considered Germany's heir in China.

In regard to the German colonies and Italy's
claims in the Tyrol and the Adriatic coastlands,
the four Entente Powers had a better argument
even than secret treaties to anticipate the decisions
of the Peace Conference. They were in posses-
sion! Great Britain, France, and Japan had con-
quered Germany's colonies and had ensconced
themselves in them.

Nor was the future of the Ottoman Empire
going to be decided by the Peace Conference in
accordance with Mr. Wilson's ideas. Great Brit-
ain and France had arranged their claims under

34

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, and Entente
spheres of influence had been definitely outlined in
191 5 and 1916. Great Britain had conquered
Mesopotamia and Palestine, and she had annexed
Cyprus and proclaimed a protectorate over Egypt
(both of which countries she had occupied for
forty years) at the outbreak of the war in 1914.
France took possession of Syria and Cilicia im-
mediately after the armistice with Turkey. The
Entente Powers were in joint occupation of Con-
stantinople. The British had gone into the Cau-
casus and Persia. A desultory war was being
carried on against Soviet Russia, in which the
United States had become involved. There
were all sorts of agreements and understandings
and intrigues in eastern Europe to prevent the
formulation of a common policy toward Russia,
which, as President Wilson put it, was to be "the
acid test of our sincerity."

The new states, Czechoslovakia and Poland,
the aggrandized states, Rumania, Serbia, and
Greece, and countries that had not been belliger-
ents but expected the -conference to decide their
future, such as Egypt, Armenia, Persia, the Cau-
casus republics, Ukrainia, Lithuania, Latvia, Es-
thonia, and Finland, were not bound, before the
conference, by special agreements with any of the
great powers. They furnished the most hopeful
field for the application of the Wilsonian prin-

35

\

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ciples. President Wilson, with his personally
selected delegates, experts, and secretaries, ar-
rived in Paris more than a month before the con-
ference met. Mr. Wilson received an enthusiastic
reception, which was repeated in England and
Italy during the holiday season. His aides and
advisers were men of great ability, who had pre-
pared themselves in the minutest details for thpir
task. The President did not lack well informed
and well balanced collaborators. They organized
their offices in such a way that the peace delegation
had available not only the data compiled in Amer-
ica but also accurate information concerning con-
ditions, as they developed during the conference,
in Europe and the Near East.

But the principal asset of success was lacking.
The United States had failed to make her cooper-
ation in the war contingent upon the acceptance
by her associates of certain facts and well defined
principles. None of them was pledged to us.
All of them were pledged to one another in ways
that were going to make futile the work that
President Wilson purposed to accomplish. The
Peace Conference was not going to bring to us
"the moral leadership of the world." None cared
for our leadership at the beginning; and during
the conference, instead of President Wilson's im-
posing his ideals upon the other statesmen, they
imposed theirs upon him.

36

CHAPTER III

THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

BOOKS about the famous conference of 1919
have multiplied so rapidly that a man must
have much space to shelve them all, and he
can hope to do little else if he has decided to read
them thoroughly, with what the critics have to say
about them. For most of the cooks in the Paris
broth, after spoiling it, were unable to control
the impulse to tell the world why it was not their
particular fault. Coming back to America after
the conference, I began to collect material about
it, documents, books, reports of speeches and de-
bates, magazine articles, newspaper cuttings of
reviews of books and of letters about books and
about the criticisms of them. The material
mounted alarmingly. And yet I kept on reading.
The general impression that comes from trying to
get every angle of criticism concerning the con-
ference is not at all confused. On the contrary,
it is clear. The Paris Peace Conference, in re-
trospect, has few defenders of its methods or its
work. It is on record, convicted by those who
participated in it,_as_one of the most tragic and
monumental failures of history.

37

EUROPE SINCE 1918

M. Andre Tardieu is the only writer of au-
thority who believes that the conference was con-
ducted along proper lines and achieved results
inherently right and of a permanent nature.
Against this virtually solitary voice, the British
premier, who signed the Treaty of Versailles, and
the Italian premier, who ordered his representa-
tives to sign it, have clamored to be heard on the
other side, repudiating, denouncing, ridiculing
their own work. Other outstanding signatories,
notably Secretary Lansing, of the United States;
Mr. Barnes, of Great Britain ; Minister of Justice
Doherty, of Canada; General Smuts of South
Africa; Minister of Justice Vandervelde, of Bel-
gium; and Premier Bratiano of Rumania, have
criticized the Paris settlement severely. General
Smuts protested against the treaty at the time he
signed it, and said later in the South African
Parliament: "Frankly I did not think that the
treaty, even in its modified form, conformed to
our pre-armistice pledges." Speaking for Mr.
Wilson, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker summed up the
failure of Paris in the statement that there was
"no willingness to sacrifice anything, therefore
no possibility of securing real and just settlements
based on cooperation. And this did not apply
only to France and Great Britain; it applied also
to America."

Most of the books written on the Peace Confer-

38

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

ence by those who had a part in it offer, for the
difficulties in the way of settlement, explanations
so elaborate and painstaking — and withal so true
— that one feels the force of the old French prov-
erb: "Qui s'excuse s'accuse."

But the world to-day, five years after the war,
suffering from the consequences of the failure to
establish peace at Paris in 1919, is not greatly
interested in the host of reasons given for the
failure. Nor does the world care enough about
the title to fame of any of the actors in the great
tragedy to seek to build up a case for or against
the European statesmen and their American col-
league. What we want to know is just what hap-
pened at Paris, without appraising the individual
measure of blame. The facts give us all we want
just now to help us in solving our present prob-
lem. We need only an objective account of the
work of the conference, without going into details,
without criticizing, without attempting to explain.

The proceedings began informally when the
Italians arrived in Paris on January 9 and held a
preliminary conference with the French and the
Americans. The British arrived on the eleventh,
and on January 12 a preliminary session was held
at the Quai d'Orsay, in which France proposed
that only the representatives of the five great
powers should attend all the meetings of the con-
ference, and that the minor states should be rep-

39

EUROPE SINCE 1918

resented only when questions immediately affect-
ing them were to be discussed. Among the minor
states consideration should be given in allotting
1 epresentation to the amount of force exerted in
the defeat of Germany. After some discussion
the basis of representation outlined in the previous
chapter was decided upon.

The first plenary session of the conference took
place on Saturday, January 18, the day having
been especially chosen by the French Government.
It was the anniversary of the formal proclama-
tion of the German Empire at Versailles in 1870.
President Poincare declared the conference
opened, and M. Clemenceau was elected president
on the motion of Mr. Wilson, seconded by Mr.
Lloyd George. M. Clemenceau said: "The
program of this conference has been laid down by
President Wilson. There is no question of ter-
ritorial or continental peace. The peace we have
to make is a peace of peoples. No mere words
are required. That program stands upon its own
feet. Let us work quickly and well." With these
words the session was closed, the question of the
League of Nations having been placed on the
agenda for the second sitting.

On January 22, at a meeting of the Supreme
War Council, President Wilson proposed that an
invitation be sent to all warring factions in Russia
to meet at Prinkipo, in the Sea of Marmora, to

40

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

talk peace and to come into touch with the Paris
Conference. The invitation was actually issued,
and some of the powers named delegates to meet
the Russians at Prinkipo. The factions opposed
to the Bolshevists refused to agree to a truce,
however, and in this they were heartily supported
by the French press. It was the first open criti-
cism of President Wilson.

The American President still dominated the con-
ference at the second plenary session on January
25, when he moved the resolution that would es-
tablish a commission to draw up a charter for "a
League of Nations created to promote interna-
tional cooperation." The second clause in the
resolution read : "This League should be treated
as an integral part of the general treaty of peace,
and should be opened to every civilized nation
which can be relied on to promote its objects."
Both parts of this clause proved to be the undoing
of the league. At the very beginning it was seen
that Mr. Wilson was being manceuvered into a
position where he would agree to have the league
made an instrument for the enforcement of the
treaty. From this group of states Germany and
Russia could be indefinitely excluded on the
ground that they were not to be "relied on to pio-
mote its objects."

At the second plenary session, on the heels of
the passage of the resolution establishing a League

41

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of Nations, came an outburst from the minor
states that influenced radically the entire work of
the conference. M. Hymans of Belgium pro-
tested that the organization of the conference put
the real power — all the power — in the hands of the
United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and
Japan. He demanded representation for Belgium
on all the commissions. The delegates of Brazil,
Canada, Jugoslavia, Greece, Portugal, Czecho-
slovakia, and Poland followed with similar pro-
tests and demands. Was the world going to be
ruled by five powers, which, because of their size,
assumed the right to dictate to all the other na-
tions? Had not the war been fought to refute
the Prussian belief that might went before right?

M. Clemenceau would allow no debate. He
pointed out that the five great powers had won the
war. It was their privilege to make the peace.
They could have done so without reference to the
smaller states. But they had graciously called
these smaller states into consultation. The great
powers did not purpose to consult the smaller
states except in matters in which they were di-
rectly interested. Thus was notice served upon
the world that nineteenth-century principles of
international diplomacy had been adopted for the
Paris conference. The peace treaties were going
to embody the results of bargains secretly arrived
at among the great powers by compromising their

42

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

own national interests. The smaller states were
to be used as pawns in the old game. The pro-
gram of President Wilson, which M. Clemenceau
had said was to be that of the conference, was
made impossible of fulfilment by the way the
conference was organized.1

The minor states understood the significance of
M. Clemenceau's answer to their protest. M.
Clemenceau made it clear that there were to be no
"open covenants, openly arrived at" ; and his pro-
nouncement was an invitation to the statesmen of
minor countries to engage in separate negotia-
tions with the delegates of the great powers, offer-
ing a quid pro quo for the big fellow's support of
their interests.

Let us take for example the case of M. Hy-
mans of Belgium and M. Dmowski of Poland.
M. Clemenceau was on the friendliest terms with
these two men, but they thought they could do
better for their country if the interests of Bel-
gium and Poland were advanced and maintained
in conference with the delegates of all the powers.
But the French Foreign Office had decided that
Belgium and Poland were necessary allies foi
France. Therefore, they were not to treat di-

1 In his last great speech, on September 27, 1918, speaking
of the work of the conference ahead, Mr. Wilson had said :
"There must be a full acceptance of the principle that the in-
terest of the weakest is as sacred as the interest of the strongest.
That is what we mean when we speak of a permanent peace."

43

EUROPE SINCE 1918

rectly with the powers as a whole. France was
to become their spokesman and defender in the
inner council. This is what went on throughout
the conference in regard to the interests of all
the minor states. They were encouraged, or
rather forced, by their very exclusion from
the council table, to engage in intrigues to ad-
vance their interests. After the second plenary
session Paris could not help becoming a typical
nineteenth-century conference of the great
powers.

On the various commissions in which the new
map of Europe was being decided upon, the rival
claims of the small states were upheld or opposed
by the representatives of the Entente Powers not
on the merits of the matter in hand but in accord-
ance with orders issued by the respective Govern-
ments to their delegates. What these orders were
depended upon the tractability of the smaller states
in direct and secret negotiations with the foreign
offices of the Entente Powers. On the commis-
sions, only the American members, having no
interests at stake, were acting judicially; all the
others were acting politically. And, where
smaller states were represented on the commis-
sions, their votes were frequently influenced by
threats and bribes. Questions like the Teschen
dispute between Czechoslovakia and Poland, the
Banat dispute between Jugoslavia and Rumania,

44

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

and the Hellenistic ambitions of Greece were
highly profitable for this purpose.

Mr. Wilson thought that the regulations, by
which the minor states were excluded, had been
adopted to make possible a practicable working
committee ; and he found reasonable, as did every
one, M. Clemenceau's argument that, as the great
powers had won the war and would have to be re-
sponsible for the enforcement of peace, they must
keep in their hands the final decisions. But Mr.
Wilson did not know how the game was being
played. Few of his colleagues suspected what was
going on until the conference entered its fourth
month. When Mr. Wilson presided at the ses-
sions of the Commission on the League of Nations
and found provision after provision being changed
and modified, little did he suspect that the opposi-
tion he encountered on the part of some of the
members of the commission was due not to convic-
tion but to deals that had been made regarding
questions that had nothing to do with the League.

On February 14 the League of Nations Cove-
nant was submitted to a conference at a plenary
session, President Wilson reading the text and
commenting upon the clauses as he proceeded.
The emasculation of the original idea and the al-
teration of the original drafts had occurred in the
committee meetings. So the comment was per-
functory. It was the impression of observers

45

EUROPE SINCE 1918

that the plenary session had been convoked, just
as had the others before it, as a matter of form.
It was "throwing the dog a bone." I found that
many of the delegates felt the same way. One, a
man of great power and influence in his own
country, said to me as we were leaving the Quai
d'Orsay: "I do not know why I should feel so
humiliated and annoyed when I come to one of
these sessions. They are such farces — we ought
to laugh. But the thinly veiled insult rankles."

When the armistice was renewed on February
16, the Germans were required to evacuate the
greater part of the province of Posen, thus fore-
shadowing an important territorial decision
months before the treaty was signed. Mr. Wil-
son and Mr. Lloyd George returned home for
visits. When Mr. Wilson arrived back in France
cn March 13, he discovered that during his ab-
sence there had been an effort to separate the
League of Nations scheme from the actual treaty.
The reason given for this was the impatience
that was being felt over the delay in imposing
peace terms on Germany. Mr. Wilson saved the
League, but at the price of agreeing to finish the
discussion and decisions in secret meetings with
the three Entente premiers. So the Council of
Ten, composed of two delegates from each of "the
five principal Allied and Associated Powers," was
replaced by a Council of Four.

46

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

From this moment, Mr. Wilson was lost alto-
gether. At first he fought valiantly for his peace
program, but he gradually yielded on this point
and on that until there was nothing left of his
Fourteen Points, which were supposed to be the
basis upon which peace was to be built. He justi-
fied his concessions to practical international pol-
itics by the expression of his firm belief in the
corrective power of the League of Nations.
Whether Mr. Wilson acted wisely or was justi-
fied in his sublime faith in the League Covenant
are not questions that enter into this narrative.
The aftermath of one of his most criticized yield -
ings to expediency, that of Shantung, has seem-
ingly vindicated this compromise. But there can
be no question that the conference did not use
President Wilson's "Fourteen Points and sub-
sequent discourses, notably that of Septem-
ber 27, 1918," as the guiding principles of the
treaties.

The session of the Council of Four continued
week after week, not always harmoniously.
Secrecy could not be maintained, for example, in
regard to Mr. Lloyd George's refusal to accept the
recommendation of the Commission on Eastern
Frontiers of Germany, which recommended that
large districts whose population was more than
90 per cent. German be given to Poland. Presi-
dent Wilson was not interested in self-determina-

47

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tion for the Germans.1 But he became a cham-
pion of the Jugoslavs, opposed bitterly the Italian
solution of the Adriatic question, and finally at-
tempted to appeal to the people of Italy on the
Fiume question over the head of their Govern-
ment. This led to the withdrawal of the Italian
delegation.

Great Britain and France were bound to Italy
by the treaty of 191 5. While Fiume was not in-
cluded in the rewards promised Italy by that
treaty, northern Dalmatia was. The British and
French advised the Italians not to press all their
claims, but declared that they were ready to stand
by their treaty engagements. Similarly, Mr.
Wilson found himself isolated when the question
of Shantung came up. He made himself the
champion of China, but was confronted with the
pledges given by the three Entente Powers to
Japan. Mr. Wilson later explained he had not
known of the existence of these treaties or of the
agreements relating to the Ottoman Empire.
But they had been published as early as 1917!

1 Many observers, like myself, marveled at the change that
came over Mr. Wilson between January and May. His vindic-
tiveness, as brought out in the discussions over Polish frontiers,
puzzled the British as well as the Americans. He had traveled
far from the spirit of his message to Congress of December 4,
1917, in which he had said : "No nation or people shall be
robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single
country have themselves done deep and abominable wrong. . . .
The wrongs . . . committed in this war . . . cannot and must
not be righted by the commission of similar wrongs against
Germany and her allies."

48

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

Between the middle of January and the end
of April there were only five plenary sessions of
the conference, three of them devoted to the
League of Nations and one to international labor.
No important question of peace had been brought
before the conference as a whole, and most of the
delegates knew only what the newspapers printed
concerning the character of the treaty to be
handed to the Germans. The delegates of the
nations vitally interested knew little or nothing
about the terms of the other treaties. The Coun-
cil of Ten, and then the Big Four, had assumed
authority and responsibility. They had made the
decisions on all important questions : reparations,
punishments, boundary-lines, disarmament, trans-
portation, and various economic matters. Far
East and Near East, the Pacific islands and Af-
rica, as well as the various questions of Europe,
had passed in review before the three Entente
premiers and President Wilson. Details had been
worked out by commissions, but these in turn re-
flected the foreign policies of the Entente powers.
Only the League Covenant was given publicity
and submitted in its various stages to the delegates
as a whole.

The sixth plenary session was a private one,
held on May 5, when the draft of the Treaty of
Versailles was submitted to those who were sup-
posed to have made it. There were protests on

49

EUROPE SINCE 1918

minor points. The major protest came from the
Chinese, who declared that they could not sign the
treaty if it contained the Shantung provisions,
and from Marshal Foch, who announced that he
considered the security given to France inade-
quate from the military point of view. The rep-
resentatives of the smaller states were not asked,
however, to approve the draft treaty. It was
simply communicated to them in the same way
that it was to be communicated to the Germans.

At three o'clock on the afternoon of May 7,
1919, the terms of the treaty were delivered to
the German delegation, which had been summoned
for that purpose to Versailles. M. Clemenceau
said that any observations would have to be made
in writing within fifteen days, and would be
answered promptly.

The head of the German delegation, Count von
Brockdorff-Rantzau, replied with heat and force
to M. Clemenceau's implication that Germany was
a prisoner in the dock, solely responsible for the
war and its horrors. He declined the invitation
to admit the unilateral responsibility of Germany
and the sole guilt of Germany for crimes during
the war. He reproached the Allies for having
taken six months to communicate their peace
terms, during which they had maintained the food
blockade, which had cost the lives of hundreds of
thousands of German non-combatants. He re-

50

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

minded us that a pre-armistfce agreement, binding
upon both parties to the war, existed, and that a
peace which could not be defended as just before
the whole world would in the end cause resistance
to the terms imposed. "Nobody will be capable
of subscribing to it with a good conscience, for it
will not be possible of fulfilment. Nobody would
be able to take upon himself the guarantee of its
execution which ought to lie in the signature."
Cold silence greeted the count's speech. M. Clem-
enceau arose, and the meeting ended. But many
who were present felt that they had not been
witnessing the beginning of an era of peace. The
chill presentiment of a more horrible war than the
one that had just ended filled us.

On May 8 the press published a brief summary
of the draft treaty. As if there was something
to be ashamed of, the document in full was not
printed, and it was impossible for public opinion
to pass judgment upon the practicability and
wisdom, if not the justice, of its terms. The
folly of this rigorous censorship became apparent
when German and neutral newspapers published
the full text in instalments. I went to Frankfort
ten days after the treaty was communicated to
the Germans and bought copies of the complete
document in French and English at a hotel news-
stand. When I returned to Paris next day, I
found that it was considered lese-majesty at the

5i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

American headquarters for a private individual
to have this document in his possession. Why?
No answer has ever been given to this question.
Nor has it been explained why President Wilson
attached importance to keeping from the Amer-
ican press — even from the Senate — a document
that was being freely circulated in European
countries other than France. During the weeks
between the communication of the treaty and its
signature, the press published synopses of Ger-
man observations and Allied replies. But how
was public opinion to understand this correspond-
ence and approve the Allied replies when it had
not been informed exactly what the document
under discussion contained?

The Germans handed in voluminous notes.
They contended that the territorial provisions
violated President Wilson's Fourteen Points, and
declared that it would be a physical impossibility
for Germany to fulfil the economic clauses. Their
experts wrote out an argument to show that the
failure to name a definite sum would jeopardize
the authority of the new German Government,
would mean economic slavery for the vanquished,
and would involve all central Europe in ruin.
They pointed out that the tentative sums de-
manded exceeded the convertible wealth of Ger-
many, and that if the treaty were signed, with
such obligations forced upon them, default would

52

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

be inevitable. They presented a brief on the ques-
tion of the responsibilty of the war, which they
were asked to acknowledge, pleading that such a
matter should be left to experts, with all the docu-
ments before them from the official archives of
the several countries involved. They asserted
that it would be impossible to force upon the
German people international control of waterways
and other means of transportation without reci-
procity. They asked that alleged violations of
the laws of war should be tried before a neutral
tribunal, and asserted that they had a list of
Allied war criminals against whom they could
submit evidence as damning as the Allies could
submit against German officers and soldiers.

At the end of May they made counter-pro-
posals, agreeing to disarmament clauses, to the
reduction of their army to one hundred thousand
men, and also to the abolition of their navy. They
agreed that Dantzig should be a free port, but
rejected some of the territorial clauses and the
penal stipulations. They refused to confess their
sole responsibility for the war. They asked for
plebiscites in territories taken from them by the
treaty. They agreed to pay for reparations a
total sum not exceeding 100,000,000,000 gold
marks.

The Allies answered the German notes, one by
one, in writing. No honest effort was made to

53

EUROPE SINCE 1918

justify in detail the terms to which the Germans
objected by bringing arguments to refute the Ger-
man arguments. The attitude of the Allies, in
every answer, was that the Germans forgot that
they had lost the war, a war for which they were
solely responsible and which had brought upon the
world endless misery. They were reminded of
the fact that they had done more wrong than the
most unfavorable terms could atone for, and that
the damages due to their invasions of other coun-
tries and their diabolical destruction of cities,
factories, and mines had put them beyond the
pale of civilization. They ought to be glad that
the terms were not harder. The terms could eas-
ily have been made harder. In none of the Al-
lied replies was attention paid to the German claim
that there had been a pre-armistice agreement,
and that the Allies were using exactly opposite
principles in deciding different points, invoking
self-determination to justify detaching territory
from Germany where there were alien majorities,
and assigning .historic and strategic reasons
where the majorities were German. In the re-
plies nothing was said about the unfairness
of unilateral transport advantages in time of
peace.

After five years, a careful reading of the
Allied replies to the German observations on the
Treaty of Versailles will convince one that the

54

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

attitude of mind of the victors toward the van-
quished was unstatesmanlike, to put it mildly.
Many of the German arguments were poor, and
could have been refuted ; others were sound, and
should have been ignored only if the victors
felt that they could count upon remaining united
and ready to make use of their military superi-
ority, which was due only to their union, through-
out the period of the execution of the treaty.

Owing to the insistence of Mr. Lloyd George,
certain modifications were made in the proposed
frontier with Poland, and plebiscites were pro-
vided for Upper Silesia, Marienwerder, and Al-
lenstein. The arrangement for German repur-
chase of the Saar region was also modified. The
final concessions were given to the Germans on
June 1 6, subject to a five-day term for acceptance
or rejection of the treaty in its entirety. This
led to the downfall of the German Government
and the withdrawal of von BrockdorfT-Rantzau
and his associates from Versailles. A new Gov-
ernment, composed of elements that had never
before had the upper hand in Germany, was
formed. Its chancellor, Herr Bauer, won the
support of the National Assembly in a submission
policy. The upper classes and the intellectuals
in Germany were solidly opposed to signing a
treaty which, they said, would only keep central
Europe in turmoil indefinitely and lead to a war

55

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of revenge. They felt that the best course for
Germany to pursue would be to allow the vic-
tors to denounce the armistice and occupy all of
Germany.

This the victors were quite ready to do. The
Allied armies on the Rhine were held in readi-
ness. But the Bauer Government, supported by
a demoralized and hunger-stricken people, suc-
ceeded in getting two men who were willing to
go to Versailles and put their names to the treaty.
On June 23 the German Government notified the
Allies that it was ready to sign.

The event that ought to have marked a new
era for Europe and the world took place in the
Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on Saturday after-
noon, June 28, on the spot where the German
Empire had been proclaimed in 1870. Had the
treaty been really based on Mr. Wilson's pro-
gram, as it purported to be, had it contained a
League of Nations Covenant along the lines of
the noble conception of its advocates, had one
weight and one measure been applied to all alike,
there would have been some hope of a European
and world peace born in the hearts of men that
day. And, whether just or not, the treaty would
have been practicable and would have ushered in
a new era had those who framed it been bound
together by common interests in its enforcement.
But the great powers were divided ; and the small

56

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

powers, not having had any part in the treaty-
making, did not consider it as theirs. Most of
the people in the room had had no opportunity to
study the treaty, and many of them had not been
able to get hold of a copy to read it. But all who
knew what was in it realized the futility of the
performance.

Most of the Frenchmen present had expressed
in no uncertain terms their idea that the treaty
v/as not drastic enough, and that M. Clemenceau
had betrayed his country's interests. The Eng-
lish, on the other hand, thought it was too
drastic. The Americans were divided, but I
think the majority shared the British sentiment.
The Italians and Japanese and most of the small
powers had no particular interest in the treaty.
Fearing to be assassinated if they returned home
after having put China's name to such a docu-
ment, the Chinese at the last minute refused to
sign. Of the smaller states only the Belgians,
Poles, and Czechoslovaks were vitally interested,
and none of these was satisfied. Denmark re-
ceived back Schleswig, but she had had to
remonstrate vehemently with the Allies to prevent
them from giving her more than she wanted!
Russia, whose consent and cooperation were es-
sential for the enforcement in future years of a
treaty of this character, especially the supple-
mentary Polish treaty, was not only absent but

57

EUROPE SINCE 1918

had made it known that she considered the treaty
null and void.

The ceremony was like a funeral ; for a con-
sciousness of failure was present among the sig-
natories. And among some was a consciousness
of shame. I talked to two of the principal signa-
tories on the eve of the ceremony, and they told
me that they felt they were going to do something
dishonorable. Another signatory, representing
one of the British dominions, told me on the eve-
ning of June 28 that it had been the saddest day
of his life.

But the only delegate who protested openly was
General Smuts of South Africa. As I write I
hold in my hand his mimeographed statement,
which was distributed at the moment he appended
his signature. This copy was given to me by
Sir George Riddell as General Smuts got up to
walk to the table where the treaty lay. Said the
general :

I feel that in the treaty we have not yet achieved the
real peace to which our peoples were looking, and I feel
that the real work of making peace will only begin after
this treaty has been signed. . . . The promise of the new
life, the victory of the great human ideals, for which the
peoples have shed their blood and their treasure without
stint, the fulfillment of their aspirations towards a new
international order, and a fairer, better world, are not
written in this treaty. ... A new spirit of generosity
and humanity, born in the hearts of the peoples in this

58

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

great hour of common suffering and sorrow, can alone
heal the wounds which have been inflicted on the body
of Christendom. . . . There are territorial settlements
which in my humble judgment will need revision. There
are guarantees laid down, which we all hope will soon be
found out of harmony with the new peaceful temper and
unarmed state of our former enemy. There are pun-
ishments foreshadowed, over most of which a calmer
mood may yet prefer to pass the sponge of oblivion.
There are indemnities stipulated, which cannot be ex-
acted without grave injury to the industrial revival of
Europe, and which it will be in the interests of all to
render more tolerable and moderate. There are nu-
merous pin-pricks which will cease to pain under the
healing influence of the new international atmosphere.

The real peace of the peoples ought to follow, com-
plete, and amend the peace of the statesmen. . . . The
enemy peoples should at the earliest possible date join
the League, and in collaboration with the Allied peoples
learn to practice the great lesson of this war, that not
in separate ambitions or in selfish domination, but in
common service for the great human causes, lies the true
path of national progress. This joint collaboration is
especially necessary to-day for the reconstruction of a
ruined and broken world.

President Wilson also issued a statement after
the signing- of the treaty, in which he asserted
that it contained many things that others failed
to find in it. He spoke of it as "a great charter
for a new order of affairs." From this time Mr.
Wilson became an ardent champion and defender
of the treaty, taking in regard to it the attitude

59

EUROPE SINCE 1918

that literal inspirationists take in regard to the
Bible. He set forth the theory on June 28, 1919,
that the important feature of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles was the League of Nations, which he be-
lieved would immediately assume the dominant
position in the conduct of international affairs.
Because of the Treaty of Versailles, declared
Mr. Wilson,

"backward nations, populations which have not yet come
to political consciousness, and peoples who are ready for
independence but not yet quite prepared to dispense with
protection and guidance, shall no more be subjected tu
the domination and exploitation of a stronger nation, but
shall be put under the friendly direction and afforded
the helpful assistance of governments which undertake
to be responsible to the opinion of mankind in the execu-
tion of their task by accepting the direction of the League
of Nations."

Despite his seven months of daily contact with
European statesmen, Mr. Wilson had preserved
his optimism, and was willing to go on record
as prophesying that the Entente Powers were
going to interpret their mandate trusteeships in
this way.

While the Treaty of Versailles was being pre-
pared, drafts were made also of the proposed
treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and
Turkey. It was intended that the five treaties
be part of the same general settlement, each be-

60

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

ginning with the League of Nations Covenant,
and employing as far as possible the same order
and the same phraseology. What France and
Belgium had suffered at the hands of the Ger-
mans, the smaller allies had suffered at the hands
of Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey.
Germany's accomplices had been guilty of as
great devastation in their invasions, and of
infinitely greater atrocities and wrongs inflicted
upon subject peoples. This was especially true
of Turkey. If a harsh treaty was just, on moral
grounds, when Germany was the culprit, there
was greater justification in imposing harsh
treaties on the other countries that had helped
Germany in her formidable assault upon civiliza-
tion.

But unanimity was harder to secure in the
case of the other treaties. There was some
reason for allowing France to have the principal
voice in the treaty with Germany, and France's
interests were identical with those of Belgium.
The Treaty of Versailles involved only the crea-
tion of one new state, Poland, which France
powerfully godfathered. The conflicting inter-
ests of the powers in the enforcement of the
Treaty of Versailles did not arise until after the
Peace Conference.

The other treaties were a different matter.
Here from the beginning interests clashed, those

61

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of Italy and Jugoslavia in the treaty with
Austria; those of Jugoslavia, Rumania, Czecho-
slovakia, and Poland in the treaty with Hungary ;
those of Jugoslavia and Greece in the treaty with
Bulgaria ; and those of Greece and Italy, and of
Italy, France, and Great Britain, in the treaty
with Turkey. The delegates of the other enemy
powers had all been summoned to Paris before
the Treaty of Versailles was signed, but the
Allies were not ready for them.

It was felt, however, that the draft of the
Austrian treaty, although incomplete, should be
given to the Austrians before the Treaty of
Versailles was signed. For the two treaties con-
tained a similar important provision forbidding
the union of Austria with Germany. And
Austria, like Germany, was to make a large ter-
ritorial contribution to the resurrection of Poland.
Then, too, the treaty with Austria was as im-
portant to Italy as the treaty with Germany to
France.

But the delegates of the states whose future
was to be decided by the treaties with Austria
and Hungary had been showing much impatience
during May over the fact that they were having
no part in making the draft of the treaty. They
did not know what the terms were to be! Two
of the Balkan premiers told me that the Con-
ference of Paris, as far as the Danubian states

62

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

and the Balkan states were concerned, was simply
a repetition of the Conference of Berlin. The
great powers were drawing up the treaty with
due regard to their own interests, and their own
interests alone. The smaller states were ex-
pected to gather up gratefully the crumbs that
fell from the rich man's table. Was Italy go-
ing to have her own way with Austria, disregard-
ing Jugoslavic claims? Italy had a voice in the
secret conclaves; Jugoslavia did not. Were the
great powers going to write the economic clauses
of the treaties according to their own interests,
and to give themselves privileges on the Danube
that were being denied to Germany on her own
internal waterways? During the last fortnight
of May I was put in possession of information
that indicated beyond the shadow of a doubt the
moral bankruptcy of the conference , and the
mental weariness of President Wilson^-

What I had been told was confirmed in the last
three days of the month. Plenary sessions were
held on May 29 and 31 to discuss the Austrian
draft treaty. It had been the intention of the
Big Three (no longer Big Four, because Signor
Orlando had gone home in a huff) to make the
proceedings as meaningless and formal as those
of the previous plenary sessions. They had
hoped to communicate an incomplete draft treaty,
for Italy had not yet been appeased, and to

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

present it without further delay to the Austrians,
who were waiting at St. -Germain. But on May
29 Premier Bratiano and the other premiers of
Succession and Balkan states had annoyingly in-
sisted upon being given a chance to read and study
the document in drafting which they were sup-
posed to have collaborated and which they would
be expected to indorse and sign. They pointed
out the fact that the treaties with the remnants
of the Hapsburg Empire were vital to them.
They wanted to have a voice in the political and
economic engagements they were to undertake.
With bad grace, they were allowed forty-eight
hours.

The historic eighth plenary session was held
on the afternoon of May 31. Opening the pro-
ceedings, M. Clemenceau, speaking with an air
of weariness and impatience, intimated that the
Big Three were ready to listen to observations.
Premier Bratiano of Rumania was the first
speaker. He complained that the text of the
treaty had been communicated only at six o'clock
the evening before, and that there had not been
twenty-four hours to study it. He was inter-
rupted immediately by M. Clemenceau, who
asked him to read what the Rumanians had to
say. M. Bratiano made a straightforward pro-
test against the minority clauses proposed, declar-
ing that Rumania was ready to agree to any regu-

64 '

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

lations for the protection of minorities that all the
members of the League of Nations might adopt,
but that the intervention of foreign countries in
her internal affairs could not be tolerated. If the
League of Nations was a reality and not a farce
he argued that this body could be relied upon to
protect minorities by common agreement in all
the states members of the League. As the
League existed, and as all powers were to have
equal rights and to be treated alike, why did "the
principal Allied and Associated Powers" arrogate
to themselves the right to intervene in the inter-
nal affairs of Rumania, coupled with economic
privileges of a special character?

M. Clemenceau answered that the powers were
in a hurry to give the draft treaty to the Austri-
ans, but that he was in agreement with M.
Bratiano on the minorities question. Of course
the League of Nations could attend to this matter,
and France was willing to submit to any control
the League proposed. M. Bratiano returned to
the charge. He pointed out to M. Clemenceau
that the text of the treaty entrusted the protec-
tion of minorities to the great powers and not
to the League. Admitting this, now that he was
cornered, M. Clemenceau said that there was
nothing humiliating in the proposition that
Rumania receive "friendly counsels" from the
Entente Powers and the United States.

65

EUROPE SINCE 1918

M. Bratiano answered that the war had been
fought to establish the equality of states, irrespec-
tive of size, and that the Big Four had dis-
regarded this principle and had established differ-
ent classes of states, with varying degrees of
sovereignity. This Rumania could not admit.
Messrs. Paderewski for Poland, Kramar for
Czechoslovakia, and Trumbich for Jugoslavia
vigorously supported the thesis of M. Bratiano.

To the surprise and astonishment of every one,
it was the American President who came to the
rescue of Old World diplomacy. Feeling that his
authority and judgment had been attacked, and
not seeing the ' 'nigger in the wood-pile" (the de-
sire for exclusive economic privileges which had
inspired his colleagues, not defense of minor-
ities), Mr. Wilson pointed out that it is force
which is the final guarantee of public peace. Mr.
Wilson assumed that the United States and the
Entente Powers — not the League of Nations —
were to stand together indefinitely to guarantee
the maintenance of the treaties that formed the
Paris settlement. According to the official
minutes of this session, which were passed upon
and approved by the American delegation, Mr.
Wilson said:

If the world finds itself again troubled, if the condi-
tions that we all regard as fundamental are put in
question, the guarantee which is given you means that the

66

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

United States will bring to this side of the ocean their
army and their fleet. Is it surprising that in these con-
ditions they desire to act in such a way that the regula-
tion of the different problems appear to them entirely
satisfactory ? 1

M. Bratiano told Mr. Wilson that he had
missed the point, and repeated his declaration, in
which the other interested states concurred, that
the equality of all states, small and large, had
been the corner-stone of Mr. Wilson's own prin-
ciples and of the sword drawn in defense of
Serbia and Belgium. He pointed out that if the
League of Nations were entrusted with the task
of protecting minorities in all countries, the states
interested in the Austrian treaty would be glad

1 Shortly before the election of 1920, Mr. Wilson, in a public
statement, denied having made any such statement. The words
had been attributed to Mr. Wilson by Senator Spencer of Mis-
souri, who was running for reelection on the Republican ticket.
The denial was given at St. Louis, thus showing that it was
meant to influence the campaign. Because Senator Spencer had
quoted from one of my articles in "The Century Magazine," 1
was called upon to substantiate the citation. This I was able to
do from the minutes of the eighth plenary session, a complete
copy of which is in my possession. A curious refutation was
attempted in the form of a newspaper despatch from Chicago
purporting to give the exact transcription of the notes of Mr.
Wilson's confidential stenographer. But the official minutes did
not misquote Mr. Wilson. They had been established very care-
fully, and had not been filed in French in M. Dutasta's office
at the secretariat of the conference until they had been submitted
to the American delegation and approved by it. The words
quoted here are what Mr. Wilson wanted to have put on official
record as expressing his sentiment at the time. The whole con-
text of Mr. Wilson's speech, moreover, bears witness to the ac-
curacy of the sentiment expressed in this extract.

67

EUROPE SINCE 1918

to submit to a control that played no favorites.
Then M. Bratiano asked Mr. Wilson point-blank
why Italy was not included in giving definite
minority pledges along with the other states who
were to be successors of the Hapsburg Empire.
Are there degrees of sovereignty according to
size? Have large nations rights and privileges
small nations do not possess? If this was the
idea of the Americans as well as of the other
major Allies, the statements they had made dur-
ing the war were false. They were not defend-
ing Serbia and Belgium; they were fighting for
their own interests, using the cause of these two
small nations as a smoke-screen for selfishness.
But I am afraid that in the last two sentences I
have strayed from the minutes of the eighth plen-
ary session ! I have put down what M. Bratiano
told me he wanted to say in his answer to the
President.

The last to speak at this memorable session,
M. Venizelos, suggested that the legitimate
anxieties of the states immediately affected by
the treaty with Austria ought to be considered,
before the treaty was presented to the Austrian
delegation, in a special joint meeting of the Big
Four and the representatives of these states.

This was not done. The draft of the treaty
was given to the Austrians at St.-Germain on
June 2. After lengthy exchange of notes some

68

THE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

concessions were made in the economic clauses,
and an amended treaty was handed to the
Austrians on July 20. Negotiations were pro-
tracted, not on account of the Austrians, who
were powerless, but because the interests of Italy
had to be acknowledged, and because the small
states had to be appeased and bullied. The
Treaty of St. -Germain was signed on September
10. By that time, however, all interest in it had
died down, and, as far as its economic clauses
were concerned, it was universally recognized to
be more absurd and impossible of fulfilment than
the Treaty of Versailles.

The Bulgarians were handed their treaty on
September 19, and they signed it at Neuilly on
November 27. The Hungarian and Turkish
treaties had been drawn up at the same time as
the others. But there was no stable government
in Hungary to sign the treaty, and the Entente
Powers were at loggerheads over the Turkish
treaty. Before the treaties of Trianon and
(Sevres were presented to the Hungarians and
Turks, the Paris Peace Conference had gone out
of existence, and was succeeded by the three
Entente premiers, who held a series of continua-
tion conferences frequently from January, 1920,
to January, 1923.

It may be felt that I have written an un-
sympathetic account of the Paris Conference.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

But how can one write otherwise concerning an
inglorious failure? It would be possible to ex-
plain plausibly, convincingly, why it failed. But
the chronicler of contemporary history must
pass on to an examination of the treaties, and
then to judge them by the only criterion he has
the right to use: What has happened to the
world because of them? Did they bring us
peace? Have they proved to be practicable?
Were they the beginning of a new order? Has
the League of Nations filled the role expected of
it by those who said that its birth alone justified
the Paris peace settlement and would prove its
corrective?

70

CHAPTER IV

THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE TREATY
OF VERSAILLES

r | ^HE principal Allied and Associated Powers,

who took upon themselves the entire re-

sponsibility for imposing and securing the
execution of the Treaty of Versailles, sent an
exhaustive reply to the German counter-proposals
on June 16, in which, as we have seen, some con-
cessions were made in details, modifying the
draft treaty. But these were slight. In this
reply they said:

They [the victors] believe that it is not only a just
settlement of the great war, but that it provides the
basis upon which the peoples of Europe can live to-
gether in friendship and equality. At the same time it
creates the machinery for the peaceful adjustment of
all international problems by discussion and consent,
whereby the settlement of 1919 itself can be modified
from time to time to suit new facts and new conditions
as they arise. It is frankly not based upon a general
condonation of the events of 1914-1918. It would not
be a peace of justice if it were. But it represents a sin-
cere and deliberate attempt to establish "that reign of
law, based upon the consent of the governed, and sus-
tained by the organized opinion of mankind," which was

EUROPE SINCE 1918

the agreed basis of the peace. As such the treaty in its
present form must be accepted or rejected.

In the light of these words, uttered by the
Big Four at a solemn moment, we must examine
the main features of this treaty. And lest it be
thought that the American President did not ap-
prove of the treaty as signed, but agreed to it,
as General Smuts did, only in the hope of its im-
mediate and radical revision by the League of
Nations, it is fair to quote the opening paragraph
of Mr. Wilson's speech at Kansas City on
September 6, 1919. He said:

I came back from Paris, bringing one of the greatest
documents of human history. One of the things that
made it great was that it was penetrated throughout
with the principles to which America has devoted her
life. Let me hasten to say that one of the most delight-
ful circumstances of the work on the other side of the
water was that I discovered that what we called Ameri-
can principles had penetrated to the heart and to the
understanding, not only of the great peoples of Europe,
but to the hearts and understandings of the great men
who were representing the peoples of Europe.

The Treaty of Versailles, containing 440 arti-
cles, with annexes, constitutes a large sized vol-
ume. Its first twenty-six articles contain the Cov-
enant of the League of Nations. Then follow the
boundaries of Germany ; political clauses for
Europe ; German rights and interests outside Ger-

72

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

many; military, naval, and air clauses; prisoners
of war and graves; penalties; reparation; finan-
cial clauses; economic clauses; aerial navigation;
ports, waterways, and railways; labor; guaran-
tees; miscellaneous provisions.

The underlying idea of the treaty is that the
Germans are a guilty and vanquished people, who
are indefinitely compelled, without appeal, to put
at the mercy of the conquerors their lives, their
property, their territory. A reading of the treaty
will convince the fair-minded man that its many
"jokers" are so cleverly scattered through the
treaty as to nullify what provisions it does con-
tain for setting dates for the termination of the
penalties and limitations imposed upon Germany.
I saw many of these "jokers" when I read the
treaty. They were patent. But a clever lawyer
would find many more.

The late Senator Philander C. Knox, Who had
read the treaty through, told me in the autumn of
1919 that, from a legal point of view, there was
no hope whatever of Germany's being able to ful-
fil the obligations placed upon her. He brushed
the economic questions aside, and showed me how
Germany was trussed by the treaty in such a way
that no matter what she did towards fulfilment
she would still be in default. "With all the
power and authority and good will in the world,"
said our former secretary of state, "no nation on

73

EUROPE SINCE 1918

earth could ever acquit herself of the obligations
of such a treaty. If Germany were a small na-
tion, and her enemies bound together permanently
by common interests, central Europe, under this
treaty, would become within a decade a huge
region inhabited by millions of slaves. As it is,
the treaty indicts those who drew it up. It is
a crime against civilization." This comment was
provoked when I was trying to argue with tne
senator that the treaty ought to be ratified with
reservations.

Eight months later, on May 5, 1920, Senator
Knox said publicly, addressing the Senate :

The Treaty of Versailles is almost universally dis-
credited in all its parts. The majority of its negotiators
concede this. Its economic terms are impossible ; its
League of Nations is an aggravated imitation of the
worst features of the ill fated and foolish holy alliance
of a century ago. It promises little but mischief unless
recast on such radical lines as will entirely obliterate its
identity. ... We must proceed in accordance with the
established beneficent and enlightened rules and principles
of international law as they have heretofore obtained
between civilized Christian nations.

The principal features of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles are the exclusion of Germany from the
League of Nations; the failure to establish or
promise reciprocity in any of its provisions that
would otherwise have been for the common good

74

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

cf the world ; the violation of the principle of self-
determination where it was to the interest of the
victors to ignore it; the elimination of Germany
from cultural and economic participation in the
development of the world ; and the consecration of
the principle of the right of the victors in a war
to confiscate the private property of the van-
quished. Let us take up these features one by
one, with examples.

The Exclusion of Germany from the League
of Nations. Article IV of the Covenant provides
for a council of nine members, five of whom are
permanent "representatives of the principal Allied
and Associated Powers." The four minority
members "shall be selected by the Assembly from
time to time in its discretion." It is true that the
Council "may name additional members of the
League whose representatives shall always be
members of the Council," and that new members
of the League may be admitted on a two thirds
vote of the Assembly. But the jokers that ex-
clude Germany from membership in the League
as well as in the Council are the qualifying clauses
providing that a new member "shall give effective
guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its
international obligations" and that each member
of the Council possesses an absolute veto. It is
easily seen that these jokers put the admission of
Germany entirely in the hands of France, who

75

EUROPE SINCE 1918

can be sole judge of Germany's worthiness. This
same handicap holds in regard to Russia. And
no student of world affairs believes that the
League of Nations can become anything else than
the subservient tool of the Entente powers, un-
able to move in anything against their interests
or wishes, unless Germany and Russia are per-
manent members of the Council.

The Failure to Establish or Promise Reciproc-
ity in Any of Its Provisions That Would Other-
wise Have Been for the Common Good of the
World. The Treaty of Versailles contains many
good points, such as its penalties; the restoration
of plunder taken from other countries during
previous wars as well as during the recent war;
the military, naval, and air clauses ; the resurrec-
tion of Poland; the erection of mixed arbitral
tribunals ; aerial navigation clauses ; ports, water-
ways and railways clauses; labor clauses; and
other minor points. But all these features, good
in themselves, are not written in the treaties for
the purpose of establishing improved international
relations but as additional means of crippling and
punishing Germany. None of them are contrac-
tual, in the ordinary sense; that is, they bind only
one party. Reciprocity is not provided for, even
in the future. The result is not only to put Ger-
mans in a position of inferiority to citizens of
neighboring nations for the time being but to give

76

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

them no hope that this condition will ever be rem-
edied. For the numerous jokers take away the
effectiveness of the time-limits provided in some
instances for withholding- reciprocity.

It is inconceivable that officers and men of Allied
armies had not been guilty of violations of inter-
national law during more than four years of
righting. But only Germans were to be tried,
and the German Government bound itself to hand
over for trial before Allied tribunals all whose
names should be handed in. This impossible pro-
vision in itself put Germany in hopeless default
from the moment her representatives signed the
treaty. Only if the Germans had been an un-
civilized tribe of savages could such provisions
have been executed. Similarly, the trial of
Kaiser Wilhelm, too, before an impartial tribunal
would have been a splendid measure. But the
treaty bound the Germans to an unheard-of thing
in international relations. They were obliged to
confess their rulers' guilt and their own, as a peo-
ple, before the trial! And the treaty gave no
promise, as it should have done, that the question
of the responsibility for the war would be fairly
gone into by a court of justice, with all the evi-
dence before it. If the purpose of the men who
made the Treaty of Versailles was not vindictive-
ness but a desire to get at the truth, they would
have coupled their demand for the trial of the Kai-

77

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ser with a guarantee that all the documentary evi-
dence on both sides should be brought into court.
Only in this way could a fair trial have been had.
The penalties clauses of the treaty, therefore, vio-
late the accepted principles of law as well as the
dictates of fair play and common sense.

If the treaty had limited itself to the restora-
tion of the loot of the recent war, no exception
could have been taken. But Germany was sum-
moned to give up art treasures and other plunder
of the long ago. Was this done because the res-
titution was a matter of justice or to remove
ancient grievances that stood in the way of the
reconciliation of peoples? If so, the victors
should have promised to give back to one another
and to neutral nations — and in many instances
to the vanquished — the more notorious examples
of loot in their own national galleries and mu-
seums. This was a trifling matter, but it showed
the spirit of the treaty.

Permanent peace could never come from a one-
sided application of the principle of disarmament,
especially when it was coupled with the guarantees
clauses. History does not record an instance
where a great people, deprived of its means of de-
fense, with portions of its territory under military
occupation and neighboring enemy countries still
armed to the teeth, did not find some means, in-
ternally or through alliances, to break the grip of

78

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

its enemies. In 1870, by annexing Alsace-Lor-
raine, Bismarck made an armed camp of Europe.
In 1 9 19, by occupying the Rhine and disarming-
Germany without promising themselves to disarm,
the Allies, in the Treaty of Versailles, laid the
foundation for a greater and more dangerous un-
rest than Europe has known in modern times.
Lack of reciprocity in the military, naval, and
aerial clauses was practicable only (a) if the ene-
mies of Germany were ready to form a permanent
alliance and keep several million men under arms,
or (b) if they were willing to kill indefinitely all
male children born in Germany — and also the ex-
isting male population under twenty-five.

The resurrection of Poland could have been a
glorious and blessed result of the Paris settlement
had it been conceived and carried out in the in-
terests of the Poles. But the resurrection of
Poland, as provided for in the Treaty of Versailles
and the supplementary treaty, was an attempt to
create an artificial state for old-fashioned "bal-
ance of power" purposes. The real interests of
the Poles were not considered at all. Their only
hope of succeeding in rebuilding their national
life lay in having boundaries that would not in
the future create against them fatal antagonism
on the part of their two powerful neighbors, Ger-
many and Russia. Had Polish and not French
interests been considered in writing the Treaty

79

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of Versailles, the new Poland would not have been
saddled with the Danzig corridor, and Upper
Silesia would have remained German territory.
A combination of fear and greed, without states-
manlike vision, made a Poland that can never last.
The frontiers of Poland, as drawn in the Treaty
of Versailles, heralded war and not peace. They
were a perpetuation of the worst evil from which
Europe had been suffering. The corridor and
the "free port of Danzig1' were declared to be
necessary in order to give Poland an outlet to the
sea, despite the fact that Danzig is an indisputably
German city. But the same men at the same
time took away Trieste and Fiume from Austria
and Hungary, despite the dependence of their hin-
terland upon them, invoking the argument of the
population of the ports, the validity of which was
hotly denied by them when Germany invoked
it!

The erection of mixed arbitral tribunals for ad-
justment of war claims of private citizens put a
premium upon the appeal to force. What it
meant was that, if your country was successful
in fighting, you had a valid claim against a citizen
of a defeated country, and that your claim would
be adjusted by arbiters appointed by your own
country. The important thing, then, according
to the Treaty of Versailles, was not the sanctity
of private contracts entered into between indivi-

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THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

duals of different nations, but citizenship in a win-
ning nation.

In aerial navigation and in ports, waterways,
and railways, the right of the victors to transit
across and privileges on German soil were affirmed
without reciprocity. Not only were the Germans
denied the right of transport by air and water and
rail, on equal terms with other nations, outside
their own country, but they were required to open
up Germany to Allied control and to concede spe-
cial privileges in waterways and ports, to facilitate
the passage over their territory of international
trains — all this without reciprocity. The time-
limits set gave no reasonable hope of a change;
for the removal of disabilities depended upon the
integral observance of all the other treaty obliga-
tions.

The Violation of the Principle of Self -Deter-
mination Where It Was to the Interest of the Vic-
tors to Ignore It. On the ground that Alsace-
Lorraine had been forcibly taken from France
against the will of the inhabitants in a previous
war, it was altogether just that France should re-
ceive back her "lost provinces" without a plebis-
cite. Even had one been taken, the result would
not have been in doubt. France would have won
by an overwhelming vote. It was just also to
stipulate the return to Denmark of indisputably
Danish territory, with a plebiscite for doubtful

81

EUROPE SINCE 1918

border districts. The other territorial provisions
were open to question.

The most flagrant violation of the principle of
self-determination was in the matter of the de-
tachment for fifteen years (with a plebiscite at the
end of that time) of the Saar Valley from Ger-
many. This wholly German district of over half
a million souls was put under the League of Na-
tions, but really given to France to run, as com-
pensation for the destruction of coal-mines in
northern France. That the treaty of peace should
have contained provisions for adequate compen-
sation— ton-to-ton replacement — for the French
losses in coal was to be expected. But the Saar
arrangement was political and not economic,1 and,
as far as the inhabitants of the region were con-

1 The comparatively trifling value of the Saar coal, when one
thinks of the violence done to the sentiments of over half a
million people, was first brought to my attention by a group
of Alsatians, all of them thoroughly loyal to France, but who
were opposed to the Saar clauses of the treaty. They told me
in December, 1918, that the propaganda for separating the Saar
from Germany was ill advised, both from the political and
economic points of view. Politically, they were afraid of the
reunited provinces being swamped with more Germans, who
could easily cross the frontier from the Saar valley. Economi-
cally, they declared that the coal was of little value and that
the clamor for the Saar mines was simply a prelude to the
annexation of the Rhine provinces by France, to which all Al-
satians were opposed. What they told me is borne out by an
article in "The New York Times," March 25, 1923, in which a
consulting engineer, Mr. Walter Graham, says : "The Saar coal
basin is almost useless; for the coal makes a very inferior coke
and the mines are deep and gaseous, the veins thin, and the
coal impure."

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THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

cerned, its practical application meant for them
what the Treaty of Frankfort had meant for
Alsatians nearly half a century earlier. The Saar
clauses constitute a shameful betrayal of the high
ideals for which the war was fought. Confirma-
tion of this statement is easily obtained. Let the
reader go to the Saar and talk with the people.
Violence has been done to their most sacred senti-
ments. Two wrongs do not make a right.

In the House of Commons on May 9, 1923, Mr.
Edward Wood, a member of the Bonar Law
Cabinet, who presided over the meeting of the
Council of the League in April, 1923, told how
the Council had virtually washed its hands of the
Saar. The Commission consisted of a French
president, with four assistants, a Belgian, a Dane
with a French name, a Canadian, and a repre-
sentative of the Saar population. The Canadian
sided with the local representative in trying to
prevent the oppression of the people, who were
being ruled in a way that provoked them to appeal
for redress to the Council. The President of the
Commission had explained to the Council that the
decrees, adopted by the majority of the Commis-
sion, were "not illegal" and were justified on the
ground that they were adopted "to meet excep-
tional circumstances." It developed in the debate
that one of the decrees imposed penalties of im-
prisonment and fine for certain "crimes," without

EUROPE SINCE 1918

hearing or trial or resort to appeal. Among the
"crimes" was casting discredit on the Treaty of
Versailles. The inhabitants of the Saar are not
allowed to discuss publicly the regime that gov-
erns them or their future. Sir John Simon told
the Commons that this measure was a "most as-
tounding abuse of legislative power," and Mr. As-
quith called it a "monstrous and ridiculous decree"
for the like of which "one might ransack the
annals of despotism in the worst days of Russia's
oppression of Finland without finding a more
monstrous specimen of despotic legislation or one
more suppressive of the elementary rights of free
citizenship." Lord Robert Cecil, just back from
his American tour in favor of the League of Na-
tions, declared that the action was worthy of mili-
tarism at its worst, and that he had always had
grave doubts of the wisdom of making the League
responsible for the Saar regime.

The cession of Malmedy and Eupen to Belgium
was clearly against the wishes of the inhabitants
of those regions. During the peace negotiations
1 visited these places, and I visited them after-
ward, just as I did the Saar. The people told
me that they were Germans and wanted to remain
Germans. They were not given the opportunity,
any more than the people of the Saar were, to
vote upon their detachment from Germany. The
treaty provided for registers at Malmedy and

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THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

Eupen, in which, within a fixed time, any inhabi-
tant of these regions could write down his desire
to return to German sovereignty. The defenders
of the treaty, by virtue of this curious provision,
declared that the people had a chance to decide.
Did they? Any one who dared to sign those
registers was expelled and his property confis-
cated. After two or three examples of this sort,
nothing more was done. It was like the right of
our negroes to vote in the South. In these cases
I have the facts, names, dates, and particulars of
each instance.

The plebiscite for Upper Silesia contained a
joker that was afterward invoked, when the deci-
sion went against Poland, by reason of which the
Entente Powers were at liberty to disregard the
vote if it seemed best to do so. No opportunity
was given to the inhabitants of the Polish corri-
dor, separating East and West Prussia, to vote
on their own destinies. Mr. Lloyd George had
secured a modification of the original draft, by
which plebiscites were allowed for the Marien-
werder and Allenstein regions. Although the
commission on Polish frontiers at the Paris Con-
ference had recommended the detachment of these
regions from Germany, declaring that they were
"predominantly Polish," they voted 98 per cent
and 95 per cent respectively to remain with Ger-
many, and this under Allied military occupation

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

and supervision! There is little doubt that if a
fair plebiscite had been held everywhere, as had
been promised, there would have been no corridor,
and Poland would have received a much more
limited frontier in Posen than she got. I was in
Kattowitz, in Upper Silesia, when that city, de-
spite its vote for Germany was allotted to Poland.
A prominent citizen told me: "You have created
another open sore, which will be healed only by
a new war."

If the Paris Conference was actuated by the
desire to secure the fulfilment of the ideals for
which we fought, rather than the triumph of the
principle that might makes right, in taking away
Trieste and Fiume from Austria and Hungary,
these ideals were violated by taking away Danzig
and Memel from Germany. I have found no
apologist for the Treaty of Versailles who, when
confronted with the deadly parallel here, has not
admitted that different weights and different
measures were applied in these cases. There is
no more striking proof than Danzig and Memel,
as opposed to Trieste and Fiume, of the judgment
passed upon the Treaty of Versailles by Mr. Ray
Stannard Baker in his recent defense of Presi-
dent Wilson, that the treaty was a piece of hasty
patchwork, imposed at the point of a bayonet,
whose terms were simply and solely due to the
national interests of the victors.

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THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

In the provisions of the treaty relating to coun-
tries other than Germany, the principle of self-
determination was ignored in regard to China,
Morocco, and Egypt. The Chinese arguments
about Shantung were not answered. The Egyp-
tians sent a delegation, representing their National
Assembly, to protest against the recognition of
the British protectorate. But they were not
given a hearing, and this provision, although
there had been wide-spread riots in Egypt against
the British military occupation, was put into the
treaty.

The Elimination of Germany from Cultural
and Economic Participation in the Development
of the World. For more than a hundred years
before the World War, the European nations had
come to realize that their prosperity depended
upon contacts with the extra-European world.
These contacts they had established at the cost of
great sacrifices, through colonial wars, wars with
one another, and the gradual building up of in-
vestments, banks, shipping, and trading compa-
nies in all parts of the world. Because of her later
unification and slower industrial development, Ger-
many was a late comer in world politics. She
struggled under great handicaps in finding a large
part of the world already preempted when she be-
gan to look for colonies, coaling-stations, and
fields for investment and economic development.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

But her progress in the few decades preceding
the World War had been marvelous, and her
whole economic structure was built, like that of
England, upon foreign trade. Her population
had gone beyond the number that could be sus-
tained by home markets.

The greatest blow to Germany in the Treaty
of Versailles was the ban it placed upon her con-
tacts with the outside world. She was compelled
to give up her colonies; to renounce her com-
mercial treaties and concessions in every country
in the world except a few South American coun-
tries that had not declared war upon her ; and to
surrender everything that she had built up in the
way of import and export markets, by the con-
fiscation of her shipping, foreign investments,
banking and commercial establishments, conces-
sions, privileges, etc. The aim of the treaty was
to eliminate Germany as a competitor in world
markets, and to make it impossible for German
capital to accomplish anything in the future in
Africa and Asia. Germany was called upon, also,
to renounce her treaties and private concessions,
her loans, and everything else that she had ac-
quired in her relations with her former allies.
Her nationals were barred from Turkey, from
former German colonies, and from French and
British protectorates in Africa and Asia. Her
mission work in foreign countries was to be given

88

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

up entirely and not renewed. Her missionaries,
Catholic and Protestant, were never again to re-
turn to their field. Provisions were inserted in
the treaty by which the victors had the right to
bar German newspapers and magazines and
books, as well as German goods, without reciproc-
ity. Some one at Paris — I forget which of the
outstanding figures it was — said that in the Treaty
of Versailles we had reverted to the law of the
jungle. The papal nuncio, Monsignor Ceretti,
told me that the devil at his worst could hardly
have conceived so thorough a destruction of the
soul of mankind.

In connection with the various clauses through-
out the treaty, which, in their ensemble, cut Ger-
many off from the rest of the world and make her
a pariah for ever among nations, an interesting
dilemma faces those who hope to profit by the
treaty. If they are able to enforce its provisions,
do they still expect to have large reparations from
a Germany bound hand and foot in the matter of
her foreign trade, while enjoying the advantages
in their own foreign trade of having her no longer
for a competitor? And, if so, will not the ex-
ample of a Germany without colonies, army, fleet,
political and economic contacts with Asia and Af-
rica, paying not only her own expenses but a huge
surplus for reparations, refute the time-worn
argument of economic imperialism, that a nation

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

must have all these things to live? The answer
to the former question is an economic one, difficult
to explain and uphold, whether you say yes or no.
The answer to the second question, if in the affirm-
ative, proves that the greater part of our national
expenditures are money wasted, and, if in the neg-
ative, that the Treaty of Versailles was a sentence
of death passed upon a great nation, affecting not
so much those guilty of the war as their progeny
and an unborn generation.

The Consecration of the Principle of the Right
of the Victors in a War to Confiscate the Private
Property of the Vanquished. It is impossible to
deny that the Treaty of Versailles infringes upon
the age-old principle of the sanctity of private
property. A study of its reparations and eco-
nomic clauses reveals that the greatest damage
done to the world during the riot of ungoverned
passions at Paris was the attack made in the treaty
upon the fundamental bases of society. The
Treaty of Versailles assumes the dangerous doc-
trine that the state is all-powerful and has the
right to dispose of the property of its citizens, and
that a government can not only levy taxes on
capital and property of a -confiscatory character
but is able to give a clear title to the confiscation
by others of its subjects' property.

I am sure that I have not exaggerated, or
stated unfairly or extremely, this feature of the

90

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

Treaty of Versailles. During the last five years
I have had the opinion of a dozen international
lawyers, French and British and American, who
are agreed that this feature of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, if applied, would lead to departures in
existing notions of property and the role of the
state so startling as to be subversive of the exist-
ing social order. The boomerang is evident. If
Germany has a right to confiscate or assent to the
confiscation of private property for the purposes
of reparation, if the assent and carte blanche of
the German Government to confiscation by the
Allies gives a valid title, if taxes on capital can
be levied by the German Government — all this
without ruining industry in Germany — why are
not these measures legal and practicable against
private property and capital in other countries ?

The heart of the Treaty of Versailles lay in its
reparations clauses. A Reparations Commission
was created, which, like the armies of occupation,
was to be maintained at the expense of Germany.
Not until May, 1921, was it to decide upon the
amount Germany owed and could pay. The com-
mission was given sweeping powers over Ger-
many's finances, internal and external. It would
fix the amounts in money and kind of German
reparations deliveries. Against the amounts
fixed the German Government had no appeal. If
it did not do as the Reparations Commission or-

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

dered, the commission had the power, by a major-
ity vote, to declare Germany in default on repara-
tions. Then the treaty provided that the victors
could take what measures they decided upon to
penalize Germany for the default and to collect
their claims. Since no appeal or arbitration was
provided for, the Treaty of Versailles gave no
protection to the debtor against the rapacity and
vindictiveness of the creditors. Sums due were
not agreed upon by mutual consent ; they were
fixed by the vfctors. There was no protection in
the treaty against possible abuse of this privilege,
and no definition of the measures to be taken after
default. The Treaty of Versailles thus put Ger-
many at the absolute mercy of her conquerors,
without appeal, legal or otherwise. By taking
away the security of German territory, the treaty
made impossible the revival of German prosperity
and the fulfilment of the obligations of the treaty.

Last of all, the most curious -feature of the
treaty was its failure to provide the machinery
for its enforcement. The Germans had been able
during more than four years to withstand their
enemies. And it is certain that the Entente
powers could not have dictated a victors' treaty
without the cooperation of the United States.
Germany signed the treaty because she was forced
to do so. And, as it was a one-sided and humili-
ating treaty, giving the Germans no hope whatso-

92

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

ever for the future as an encouragement to fulfil
its terms, the victors ought to have realized the
necessity of providing, jointly, for the permanent
maintenance of a huge standing army to keep the
Germans in submission. A document of the
nature of the Treaty of Versailles was worthless
unless coercion, permanent coeraion, was pro-
vided for. As events have proved, the assump-
tion of the Paris peacemakers, i. e., that they
would stick together, was wrong. What other
result could be expected, then, from the Treaty of
Versailles than that the Germans would obey the
treaty only in so far as force was employed? The
spirit of the treaty is not peace but war. The
Germans were to be considered permanently as en-
emies. They were not to be allowed to become
friends.

When you have an enemy, you do not have
peace.

When you cannot count upon remaining friends
with one another, and you are confronted with an
unknown factor like Russia, you read over again
the Treaty of Versailles and say to yourself : "If
I ever believed that any good could come of it, I
must have been of unbalanced judgment, owing to
the passions of the moment. Certainly those who
made the treaty were !"

03

CHAPTER V

THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY OF
VERSAILLES TO WIN POPULAR
APPROVAL

FROM the moment of its signature, the Treaty
of Versailles had "a bad press" throughout
the world. Ratification by the parliaments
of most of the contracting nations seemed assured,
but in no country did those who favored ratifica-
tion support their case by any other argument
than that of expediency. It was an inadequate
treaty, disappointing along practical as well as
idealistic lines, its supporters admitted; but what
else was there to do than to make it, imperfect as
it was, the foundation of peace? After all, the
compromises among the Entente Powers left them
with substantial gains; and Belgium and Poland
were decidedly the winners. The weak features
of the treaty could be remedied in later confer-
ences. And yet, despite the reasonableness of this
argument, to all nations that participated in the
conference except Great Britain and China it was
a problem, what attitude they should adopt toward
the Treaty of Versailles.

China solved the problem by not accepting the

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THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

treaty at all. Her delegates refused to sign the
document that put millions of their fellow-citizens
of the sacred and historic province of Shantung
into the hands of Japan. At the command of the
President of the United States, the American
Minister to China had formally invited the Chinese
to participate in the World War for the triumph
of certain definite principles which had been
clearly set forth in detail by the President, who
said he spoke on behalf of the American people.
Believing in President Wilson's good faith, the
Chinese came into the war. When they discov-
ered that in the councils of the Big Four their
confidence had been betrayed, they would have
nothing to do with the Treaty of Versailles. In
his spectacular trip west to defend the treaty,
when it was before the Senate, President Wilson
tried to explain away the Shantung arrangements.
But he could not do it to the satisfaction of China.

The British Parliament ratified the treaty with-
out debate. Naturally. For, like the Treaty of
Vienna a hundred years earlier, it added greatly
to Great Britain's already overwhelming world
power. The continental powers were weak and
disrupted, incapable of threatening in the near
future "the peace of the world" as Downing Street
understands that term ; that is, of contesting with
the mistress of the seas extra-European markets
and intercontinental carrying-trade. German

95

EUROPE SINCE 1918

naval power was destroyed. German colonial and
commercial ambitions had received a serious set-
back. Russia was no longer a menace to British
supremacy in Asia. The Treaty of Versailles
established new safeguards to India by recogniz-
ing the British protectorate over Egypt, by ig-
noring the plea of Persia to be a signatory or at
least a beneficiary of the treaty, by making no
provision for the future of Asiatic and Trans-
caucasian Russia, and by giving international
sanction to British secret treaties, no matter what
unknown provisions those treaties might contain.
It made Great Britain the dominant power in
Africa. It accepted the right of the British
cabinet to speak, and sign, for the 300,000,000 in-
habitants of India. Above all, it provided that
the United States should underwrite the aggran-
dized British Empire, with a self-governing pop-
ulation of only 60,000,000, by entering a League
of Nations in which the British were to have six
votes and the United States, with its self-govern-
ing population of 100,000,000, one vote. It was
not until later that British public opinion began to
realize the danger of a weak Germany in Europe
— the danger to prosperity, through disorganiza-
tion of trade, and the danger to security, through
the looming up of another would-be dominant
power in Europe.

The Treaty of Versailles was subject to long

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THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

and penetrating criticism in the French Senate and
Chamber of Deputies. Clear-headed and far-
sighted men did not cease to protest against the
treaty on the same ground as American senators :

(1) fear that national interests had been sacri-
ficed to questionable international advantages;

(2) uncertainty as to the adequacy of the means
of enforcing the provisions in the treaty; (3) dis-
satisfaction with the League of Nations Covenant
as it stood in the treaty; (4) doubt as to the wis-
dom of having incorporated in one document the
solution of two different questions, imposing peace
upon Germany and setting up the machinery of a
new world order.

During the Conference of Paris I had the priv-
ilege of coming into intimate contact with all
classes of Frenchmen. They did not deceive
themselves. They knew well enough where they
would have been after a few months of war, had
they been facing Germany alone. Now that Ger-
many was temporarily disabled, they wanted either
a free hand to take strategic precautions against
a renewal of German aggression, which meant the
Rhine frontier, or a new defensive alliance in
place of the Russian alliance. They had no faith
whatever in the League of Nations. M. Clemen-
ceau had been persuaded to give up the Rhine
frontier in exchange for an agreement by the
terms of which Great Britain and the United

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

States were to come to the aid of France in case
of German aggression. At the best, owing to the
geographical position of the new proposed de-
fenders, the Anglo-American guarantee was not
a very certain one. After the American Senate
began to attack Article X of the League of Na-
tions Covenant, the French saw that they had
been deceived. The Anglo-American guarantee
was an illusion. The Treaty of Versailles, in
itself, provided no permanent security for France.

In Belgium I found ratification of the treaty
regarded as a painful necessity. There was no
enthusiasm for it, and no hope that a new order
would be born of it. The prime ministers of
Greece and Rumania told me that the Versailles
Treaty could not be pronounced either good or bad
by their countries until the other treaties with
enemy countries were included. But they both
felt that not peace but a series of new wars was
likely to be the result of the secret pourparlers
, among the Big Four that gave birth to the Treaty
of Versailles. The minister of foreign affairs
of another small nation expressed to me his belief
that the incorporation of the League of Nations
in the Treaty of Versailles killed the League's
chances of success.

"How could international machinery for right-
ing injustice and establishing a new international
morality belong in a document that furnishes

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THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

numerous instances of just the sort of thing the
League of Nations was created to abolish?" he
cried. I can see him now as he walked up and
down the room, shaking both arms with elbows
bended, and saying, "Pooling of interests, renun-
ciation of special privileges, refusal to transfer
territories from one sovereignty to another with-
out consulting their inhabitants, recognition of
the right of self-determination — bah ! bah! BAH !"
The poor man had just been shown a draft of the
clauses relating to his country that were to be put
into the Treaty of St. -Germain.

The statesmen of most of the smaller countries,
including the neutrals invited to become charter
members of the League, were afraid that the
inclusion of the League of Nations in the Treaty
of Versailles would make their position in this or-
ganization embarrassing. For Mr. Wilson had
succeeded in his determination to connect the
league inextricably with the treaty. Here was a
punitive treaty, imposed upon a defeated nation,
which gave great advantages to a few countries.
But many countries — in fact, almost all the coun-
tries of the world — were supposed to join in the
responsibility of enforcing the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, in whose advantages and loot they were
not sharing. Some of them had not even been
enemies of Germany. Several of them, like Hol-
land, Denmark, and Switzerland, had common

99

EUROPE SINCE 1918

boundaries with Germany and did most of their
business with her. Others, like Sweden, Finland,
and Lithuania, not only had closer cultural rela-
tions with Germany than with the Entente
Powers, but also were vitally interested in not
having Germany remain in the position of eco-
nomic serfdom to which the Treaty of Versailles
doomed her. When the draft treaty was pub-
lished, the press in all the countries neighboring
on Germany, which for the most part had been
unsympathetic or even actually hostile during the
war, pronounced its terms impracticable and war-
breeding.

In Italy the spirit of revolt against the League
of Nations and a punitive treaty imposed upon
Germany had begun before the Treaty of Ver-
sailles was signed. Signor Orlando was replaced
in the premiership by Signor Nitti while the Ger-
mans were still debating whether they should sign
or not. Italian public opinion was inflamed over
the injustice of denying to Italy "sacred treaty
rights," when Japan and Poland and France
(there was much talk in Italy about the Saar Val-
ley) were granted territorial gains in defiance of
the principle of self-determination. But Italy
could not have Fiume ! And yet the British could
have Egypt! Italian newspapers declared that
Italy was coming out at the small end of the

horn. The Treaty of Versailles recognized and

100

THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

guaranteed in every way all British demands and
selfish interests, and in almost every way French
demands and selfish interests. What Japan
wanted she got in defiance of Wilsonian principles.
Why should Italy ratify a treaty so much to the
advantage of the other Entente nations before
she was sure that the Treaty of St. -Germain and
the other treaties were going to give her as much
loot as Great Britain, France, and Japan received
from the Treaty of Versailles?

Japan was profoundly dissatisfied. It was cer-
tain that the United States, put into a hole by Mr.
Wilson's compromise, would try to wring a defi-
nite promise of restitution of Shantung to China,
with a date set. But the Japanese people did not
attach vital importance to the Shantung clauses
of the Treaty of Versailles. They blamed their
negotiators for not having made the promise of
willingness to give Shantung back to China con-
tingent upon the surrender by European Powers
of footholds, concessions, and special economic
and political privileges in China. What was good
for the goose was good for the gander. If there
was to be an open door in China, said the Japanese
press, let it be really open. Morally speaking, the
Treaty of Versailles, with its emasculated League
of Nations Covenant, was a deception to the
Japanese. They suffered in their pride by our
refusal to recognize racial equality. But the

IOI

EUROPE SINCE 1918

worst feature of the Treaty of Versailles was the
continued mortgaging it consecrated of the colon-
izable areas of the world by the white race. They
had little hope that the League of Nations, as it
was conceived in the treaty, would bring about a
world-wide state of peace. For it begged the
question of recognizing the world-wide rights of
peoples to reciprocal and equal privileges and op-
portunities. The whole spirit of the Treaty of
Versailles made the Japanese feel that Asiatic
peoples would never get a square deal without
fighting Europe for it.

Among Latin American delegates at Paris two
strong currents were battling for mastery.
Ought the Treaty of Versailles, giving birth to
the League of Nations, to be welcomed in Central
and South America and the West Indies as the
document by which the other states of the western
hemisphere were emancipated from Yankee over-
lordship? Or ought the Latin- American repub-
lics to fear the abandonment of the Monroe Doc-
trine by their entry into a world federation built
upon European ideals and European atmosphere ?

The League might prove a means of resisting
Yankee imperialism. On the other hand, it
might open the doors to something worse. The
transplanting to America of the doctrine of
European eminent domain would be deadly to the

self-respect and prosperity of weak non-Euro-

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THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

pean nations. A distinguished South American
jurist said to me at Paris: "I think you do not
need to be worried about our taking this League
of Nations business too seriously. For the first
time in my life, since I have been sitting in this
conference, I have been made to feel that I repre-
sent what Kipling calls the 'lesser breeds without
the law.' It frightens me!"

The modified form of Article XXI of the Cov-
enant, inserted to preserve the Monroe Doctrine,
was an ambiguous sop thrown to American pub-
lic opinion to quiet the apprehensions born of our
traditional instincts.1 The belief, expressed sev-
eral times by President Wilson in his speeches

1 One hundred years of trial have made Americans feel that
the Monroe Doctrine is not to be unthinkably and lightly sur-
rendered. The Senators who questioned the Covenant of the
League of Nations were on unassailable ground when they in-
sisted upon a reservation to make clear Article XXI. How
poorly this article was drafted is shown by a comparison of the
English and French texts, which have quite a different meaning.
One cannot be called a translation of the other. The French
text reads: "Les engagements internationaux, tels que les
traites d'arbitrage, et les ententes regionales, comme le doctrine
de Monroe, qui assurent le maintien de la paix, ne sont con-
sidered comme incompatibles avec aucune des dispositions du
presente pacte." The English text says : "Nothing in this
Covenant shall be deemed to effect the validity of international
engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional under-
standings like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the mainte-
nance of peace." Which text is right? The defenders of the
League are necessarily silent on this point. Of one thing we
are sure, that from the American viewpoint, the Monroe Doc-
trine is neither an "entente regionale" or a "regional understand-
ing." It is simply a unilateral declaration of purpose, valid only
because of our determination and ability to enforce it.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

justifying the Treaty of Versailles, that the
United States would have the leadership in the
League was not shared by the representatives of
Latin America. They could not take home with
them any such curious notion. For they saw
how the United States, with all the personal pres-
tige of Mr. Wilson, had no real influence in the
conference. Proof of this statement will be
found in comparing Mr. Wilson's war speeches
with the Treaty of Versailles. Had we reason
to think that our influence, after our army was
disbanded and we were sitting at Geneva, would
be greater than immediately after a victory won
because of our aid? If the Treaty of Versailles
was the result of what American prestige at its
zenith was able to accomplish in leading the
world morally, how could any thinking man sup-
pose that we were going to lead the world along
paths of peace in later years?

It was never true that the ratification of the
Treaty of Versailles without reservation by the
United States would have brought peace to Eu-
rope. It was never true that "the heart of the
world" was yearning for the kind of a League
of Nations that was established by the Treaty
of Versailles. Our associates in the World War
were eager to have a real ally in the United
States, whose continued military and financial
support would have enabled them to put into ex-

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THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

edition the Treaty of Versailles. For our moral
leadership they cared nothing. They were not
thinking about being "morally led" by any
one.

General Sir Ian Hamilton, in the Manchester
"Guardian" and the historian, Signor G. Ferrero,
in the Rome "Secolo," have pointed out the fal-
lacy of considering the League of Nations of the
Versailles Treaty a bona fide effort toward inter-
national organization and cooperation. General
Hamilton believes that "the abstention of the
United States is less damaging to the decisions of
the so-called League of Nations than the exclu-
sion of Germany; what Europe should have
quickly is a true League of European nations,
where a German can state his case and then cast
his vote." Signor Ferrero is of the opinion that
the present League of Nations is doomed because
of its partizan character, which its connection
with the Treaty of Versailles makes it impossible
to shake off. Signor Ferrero writes:

The Treaty of Versailles subjects Germany to the col-
lective protectorate of Italy, France, and England. To
imagine that the nation which, up to November, 191 8,
was the most powerful in the world may be thrust over
night under the guardianship of three powers, each
weaker than itself, is to imagine not along the lines of
political realism, but of political futurism. The truth of
this statement is apparent in the fact that four years
after the armistice France and Belgium are caught in the

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

snarl of this impossible protectorate and involved in
coercive measures that will ruin Germany without sav-
ing her enemies.

It was a sad and startling fact that the ratifi-
cation of the Treaty of Versailles and the merits
of the proposed League of Nations became a
party question immediately after the return of
Mr. Wilson. Administration and anti-adminis-
tration forces were pitted against each other in
the Senate. Most senators voted on party lines.
The Republican opponents of unreserved ratifi-
cation and advocates of rejection charged that the
obligations imposed upon us by the treaty were
incompatible with the Constitution. President
Wilson answered that the Republicans were Bol-
shevists, narrow-minded, out of tune with the
world of to-day, contemptible quitters, German
sympathizers, betrayers of the trust put in them
by our soldiers, provokers of new wars to draw
our boys across seas, and unconscious but none
the less responsible agents of Armenian mas-
sacres, who should be "hanged high as Haman."
Denouncing the Senate for performing its duty
under the Constitution; imputing unworthy mo-
tives to every senator who did not show an in-
clination to accept the treaty without examina-
tion, discussion, or investigation; ridiculing the
members of our upper house; threatening or at-
tempting to influence them by an appeal to their

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THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

constituents; insinuating that opponents of im-
mediate and unqualified ratification were pro-Ger-
man— all this campaign of passion detracted sin-
gularly from the solemnity and spirit of earnest-
ness that should have surrounded the choice of
the people of the United States to abandon or to
preserve unbroken the traditions that had been
maintained since the birth of the republic.

Of course treaty ratification became the issue
in the Presidential Campaign a year later. Pres-
ident Wilson announced that the election of 1920
should be a solemn referendum. The result was
an overwhelming victory for the Republican
party, despite the efforts of some eminent Repub-
licans to defend the League of Nations. The
new Congress terminated war with Germany and
Austria by resolution, which was signed by Presi-
dent Harding on July 2, 1921. Six weeks later
a brief peace treaty was signed in Berlin, in
which Germany agreed to give the United States
all the rights and advantages stipulated in the
Treaty of Versailles, with the exception of cer-
tain portions specifically mentioned as excluded
at the volition of the United States. The re-
pudiated portions were: the Covenant of the
League of Nations; the boundaries of Germany;
the political clauses for Europe ; the sections con-
cerning German rights outside Germany, with the
exception of the cession of the German colonies

107

EUROPE SINCE 1918

"in favor of the Principal Allied and Associated
Powers"; and the provisions concerning the or-
ganization of labor. By these omissions the
United States dissociated itself from the other
signatories of the treaty in regard to the responsi-
bility of the war, the trial of war criminals, and
the guarantees for the fulfilment of the treaty.
The right was reserved to be represented on the
Reparations Commission or any other commis-
sion established under the Treaty of Versailles.
But "the United States is not bound to partici-
pate in any such commission unless it shall elect
to do so."

The defection of the United States was an ac-
cepted fact in Paris when the Senate failed to
ratify the treaty in November, 19 19, a year be-
fore the presidential election put the stamp of
popular approval upon this action. So when the
Peace Conference broke up the United States was
already counted out of European affairs. We did
not enter at all into the other treaties.

There were three serious consequences of the
failure of the United States to ratify the Treaty
of Versailles: destroying the authority of the
treaty as the basis of a new political and economic
order; reducing the League of Nations to im-
potence as a tool of the Entente Powers ; and mak-
ing the French people realize that the Anglo-

108

THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY

American guarantee of security, proposed as the
alternative to the Rhine frontier, was worthless.
Of the Rhine frontier we shall speak in a later
chapter ; for the problem of the security of France
has dominated all other considerations in post-
bellum Europe. At this point we have only to
consider the effect upon public opinion through-
out the world of the abstention of the United
States from any part in enforcing the Treaty of
Versailles.'

The war could not have been won without the
aid of the United States. The treaty could not
have been imposed upon Germany without the aid
of the United States. Could the treaty be en-
forced without the aid of the United States?
Thinking men everywhere realized that the log-
ical result of the failure of the American Senate
to ratify the Treaty of Versailles would be the
scrapping of the treaty. British public opinion,
which had begun to turn against the treaty be-
cause of its heavy responsibilities and its sup-
posed connection with British unemployment,
clamored for revision of the treaty and the
League, drastically if need be, in order to get
the United States back into European affairs.
French public opinion demanded that the French
Government be prepared to use its army to col-
lect reparations and destroy the unity of Ger-

109

EUROPE SINCE 1918

many, a policy which should end in a new treaty,
directly between France and Germany, in which
France was to dictate the terms mistakenly aban-
doned or modified during the Paris Conference.

110

CHAPTER VI

NEW, LIGHT ON THE TRAGEDY
OF PARIS

<HE events of the past four years in Europe

and Asia, coupled with the final decision

of the American people not to enter the
League of Nations, give us the right to call the
six months of blasted hopes in 191 9 the tragedy
of Paris. For an astonishingly long time the
Peace Conference and the treaties framed by it
had their defenders, especially in the United
States, where a group of what the French would
call intellectuels declared that critics of the
treaties and the League Covenant were unreason-
able and uninformed. Colonel Edward M.
House organized in Philadelphia a series of lec-
tures on the Treaty of Versailles by experts and
Presidential advisers attached to the American
Commission to Negotiate Peace. The lectures
were valuable contributions to Peace Conference
literature. They told much, and told it well.
They were accurate and comprehensive. But
some of these gentlemen directly, and others by
inference, said that the American public had been

in

EUROPE SINCE 1918

misled by correspondents whose judgments were
based on gossip and rumor rather than on knowl-
edge of what actually happened.

It is difficult for the professional writer to an-
swer this sort of charge. Although he has as
much pride in his accuracy as the college pro-
fessor, and is fully as careful to base statements
on source material personally investigated and
tested, the newspaper correspondent is unable to
cite his sources and quote his authorities. He
deals with history in the making. He must be
discreet. He must avoid using names. When
he is accused of not knowing what he is talking
about and of making sweeping assertions, he has
to bide his time.

I was proud of the men of my craft at Paris.
The work of the American correspondents was
as trustworthy as it was brilliant. Tested by
wide knowledge and experience of the field, as
well as by training, some of the correspondents
were better qualified to acquaint their fellow-
A.mericans with what was going on at Paris than
any expert or adviser of the American Commis-
sion. For even when they participated in the
work of the various committees the American
experts had neither the knowledge nor training to
appreciate the forces at work that determined the
decisions upon the very questions they were de-
liberating.

112

THE TRAGEDY OF PARIS

Events have fully justified the severe criticism
that was made by correspondents upon the Treaty
of Versailles while it was being drafted. Actual
participants in the inner workings of the Peace
Conference have now given us, in narratives and
documents, full corroboration of what was cabled
day by day from Paris during those fateful
months. Of no great conference has there ever
been given so complete and faithful a daily
picture.

Except in rare instances of anecdote, such as
Mr. Lamont's graphic story of how President
Wilson came to agree to include (against the ad-
vice of the lawyers on the American Commission)
pensions in the reparations, Colonel House's com-
pilation does not give "What Really Happened at
Paris" in a satisfying manner. Now, if the
colonel had only written for us the frank and
unreserved story of a primary witness instead
of editing a volume of testimony of others, the
volume would have contained invaluable pages
of contemporary history. For Colonel House is
the American best qualified, aside from the ex-
President himself, to make a contribution to the
diplomatic history of America's participation in
the war and Peace Conference.

Mr. Lansing's book, "The Peace Negotia-
tions," makes it clear that only Colonel House is
qualified to write the inside story of Woodrow

"3

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Wilson and the world peace. But we do have
Mr. Lansing's contribution, Mr. Baruch's "The
Economic Sections of the Peace Treaty," and
Mr. Ray Stannard Baker's three volumes,
"Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement," which
are indictments of the treaty.

Mr. Lansing was the first of the signers of the
Treaty of Versailles to realize that the conse-
quences of the blunders at Paris were too disas-
trous in human suffering to permit the covering
up of mistakes and the glossing over of weak-
nesses. He told a story that was, in every im-
portant particular, what press correspondents
saw themselves or were told at the time by credit-
able witnesses. Mr. Lansing agreed with his
predecessors in the State Department, Mr. Root
and Mr. Knox, concerning the weaknesses and
dangers of the Covenant and its incompatibility
with American interests and ideals. He gave
the text of the letter sent by General Bliss to
President Wilson on April 29, appealing that the
great moral principles for which the United
States fought be not abandoned. Wrote General
Bliss :

If it be right for Japan to annex the territory of an
ally, then it cannot be wrong for Italy to retain Fiume
taken from the enemy. It can't be right to do wrong
even to make peace. Peace is desirable, but there are
things greater than peace — justice and freedom.

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THE TRAGEDY OF PARIS

Mr. Lansing quotes from a memorandum he
wrote on May 8, 191 9, when the draft of the
treaty was handed to the Germans :

The terms of peace appear immeasurably harsh and
humiliating, while many of them seem to me impossible
of performance. . . . Examine the treaty and you will
find peoples delivered against their wills into the
hands of those whom they hate, while their economic
resources are torn from them and given to others. . . .
It may be years before these suppressed peoples are able
to throw off the yoke, but as sure as day follows night,
the time will come when they will make the effort. This
war was fought by the United States to destroy forever
the conditions which produced it. Those conditions have
not been destroyed. They have been supplanted by other
conditions equally productive of hatred, jealousy, and
suspicion. . . . The League of Nations is an alliance of
the five great military- powers. . . . Justice is secondary.
Might is primary. . . . We have a treaty of peace, but it
will not bring permanent peace because it is founded on
the shifting sands of self-interest.

To Mr. Baker were entrusted the private
papers, letters, and even minutes of the Council
of Ten and the Council of Four, collected by
President Wilson. These have been published at
President Wilson's suggestion, with the intention
of showing that the Peace Conference was a
struggle between the new and the old, the ideal-
ism of Mr. Wilson and the sinister forces of Old
World diplomacy. In attempting to explain and

«5

EUROPE SINCE 1918

justify Mr. Wilson's role at Paris, the Baker
volumes reveal much — but by no means all — of
the sad story of how greed and particular in-
terests triumphed at the Conference from begin-
ning to end. Mr. Baker throws more light upon
the inner workings of the conference, thanks to
the unrivaled worth of his sources, than any
other writer. But his revelations only tend to
confirm the fairness of the judgments of General
Smuts and Mr. Lansing.

The only other writer who has had access to
unpublished and inaccessible material is M. Andre
Tardieu, Clemenceau's right-hand man and one
of the signers of the treaty. M. Tardieu reveals
that France's policy had been from the beginning
to make the Rhine the western frontier of Ger-
many, and have all the Rhine bridges permanently
occupied by interallied military forces. The
chief advocate of the extreme French forward
policy was Marshal Foch, who urged that the
military occupation of the left bank of the Rhine
was essential to the safety of France and Bel-
gium, but he was not supported in this stand by
the King of the Belgians. The compromise was
arranged in April, Wilson being won over on the
twentieth and Lloyd George on the twenty-sec-
ond. The evacuation after fifteen years was to
be dependent upon two conditions, the complete
fulfilment of the treaty by Germany, and also the

116

THE TRAGEDY OF PARIS

agreement among the Allies that "the guarantees
against unprovoked aggression by Germany are
considered sufficient by the Allied and Associated
Governments." These two jokers nullify the fif-
teen-year provision, and make the occupation de-
pendent upon the will of France.

The Lansing, Baker, and Tardieu books con-
firm the impression one had at the time, that Mr.
Wilson gradually abandoned position after posi-
tion, that disastrous expedients and compromises
were adopted in a spirit of panic, and that the
American president refused to stand with the
British premier at the last minute in an effort
to rid the final draft of the treaty of some of its
injustices and absurdities.

The economic clauses of the treaty are ably
discussed by Mr. Keynes, British expert; Mr.
Baruch, American expert; and former Premier
Nitti of Italy, one of the greatest European econ-
omists. These three men write from first hand,
and are agreed that the economic terms imposed
upon Germany were not only impossible of fulfil-
ment but also ruinous to the European economic
structure. Premier Lloyd George and Sir
George Foster, who signed the treaty for Canada,
have openly indorsed this position, declaring that
the reparations terms were impossible from the
beginning and imposed upon Germany a burden
that no nation could possibly carry.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

New light on the tragedy of Paris has also
come from debates in the American Senate, the
British House of Commons and House of Lords,
and the South African Parliament. The testi-
mony is concordant. The more light we get the
more we realize that the Treaty of Versailles was
not a treaty of peace, and that even those who
made it were convinced that it would not and
could not bring peace to the world.

CHAPTER VII

THE TREATIES OF ST.-GERMAIN
AND TRIANON

SEEKING a mitigation of the peace terms,
the Germans at Versailles reminded their
victors of the repeated assurance given the
German people that the Allied and Associated
Powers were making war against the Imperial
German Government. The distinction had been
clearly drawn by President Wilson on several oc-
casions. The pre-armistice correspondence re-
iterated the difference between a government of
the people and a government of the Kaiser. Had
not the Germans, by a revolution, rid themselves
of their discredited rulers, down to the most
insignificant princeling? M. Clemenceau an-
swered, in the name of the victors, that the Ger-
man people had willed the war and had sustained
it ; therefore, they could not escape the responsi-
bility for it. And, if the terms of peace were
severe, it was not only because justice must be
satisfied, but also because reasonable precautions
must be taken against an outlaw people, still over
sixty million strong.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

There was much force in M. Clemenceau's con-
tention, applied to powerful Germany, with her
industrial machinery intact, and enjoying a pe-
culiarly advantageous strategic position in central
Europe. But this same explanation cannot be
given to excuse similar terms imposed upon six
million Austrians and seven million Hungarians.
As peoples, their responsibility certainly was
much less. As new nations, shorn of much of
their territory, heavy indemnities were absurd;
and refusing the right to ethnographic frontiers
on the plea of guarantees for the future was with-
out justification. The Treaty of Versailles, had
it only been practicable, was a punishment fitting
a crime. The Treaties of St. -Germain and Tri-
anon are indefensible from every point of view.

"We have Balkanized all that part of Europe,"
said Mr. Lloyd George ruefully. He was right.
But ineptitude is none the less blameworthy be-
cause it is admitted!

"If the Hapsburg Empire did not exist, it
would have to be invented," a Russian diplomat
once said. He was a political realist. His state-
ment was a wise one from the political point of
view. The developments of the last half-century
have proved that it is wiser still from the eco-
nomic point of view. But there was no broad
statesmanship at the Paris Conference, looking
to the future, and no sound economic generalship,

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ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON

setting limits to the greed and fantasies of those
who divided the spoils. Fools rushed in where
angels would have feared to tread. The eco-
nomic evolution of the nineteenth century was
disregarded. The Hapsburg Empire was parti-
tioned in such a way as to do more violence to
the will of its inhabitants than had been done
under the old scheme of the Dual Monarchy, with
none of the economic compensations of the de-
stroyed political organism. New irredentisms
were created, much more dangerous than the old
ones. In 1914, Alsace-Lorraine was unique
among European problems: it was the only in-
stance of a people forcibly detached against their
will from a country in which they had enjoyed
the privilege of taking a full and conscious part
in the national life. The Treaties of St. -Ger-
main and Trianon did violence on a far greater
scale than the Treaty of Frankfort had done to
the national sentiments of peoples. Half a dozen
new Alsaces were brought to life and half a dozen
new danger-zones established in Europe. When
the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were made
known, students of international affairs had their
misgivings. When the terms of the Treaties of
St.-Germain and Trianon were published, we real-
ized that "the war to end war" was resulting in
the creation of causes for new wars.

Of course the problem before the peacemakers

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

was exceedingly difficult from many angles. The
Hapsburg spoils were enormous. There were
claims and counter-claims. There were promises
already made. There were faits accomplis to
take into consideration.

The peril of insisting upon a reasonable de-
cision as to frontiers, a decision in accordance
with principles, was demonstrated by the storm
Mr. Wilson caused when he tried to defend the
South Slavs against Italy. Italy had her secret
treaty with the other Entente Powers. The
Treaty of London, signed in 191 5, had been the
price paid for Italian intervention. In their des-
perate need the Entente Powers secretly sold out
Serbia, the nation in whose defense they had be-
gun the war, to Italy; and Italy had taken the
precaution of occupying militarily what she had
been promised more than three years earlier,
when the armistice with Vienna was signed. In
addition Italy claimed Fiume, which had been
outside of the 191 5 agreement. But this seemed
reasonable to her, in view of modifications of that
agreement elsewhere. President Wilson was
given clearly to understand that his principles had
nothing whatever to do with the Austrian treaty.
'Similarly, Rumania had her secret intervention
bargain, made with the Entente Powers in 1916.
And France sponsored the most extreme claims
of Poles, Czechs, and Rumanians, because she in-

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ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON

tended to form of these peoples a bloc to take the
place of Russia in the new alliance against Ger-
many. In making the Treaties of St. -Germain
and Trianon, therefore, border districts were bar-
tered with no regard whatever either for the
wishes or economic necessities of their inhab-
itants.

By these treaties Czechoslovakia was created;
Poland, Rumania, and Serbia were made as large
as possible and given contiguous frontiers and
direct railway communications ; and Italy did
unto the Austrians and South Slavs what she had
for half a century been complaining of the Aus-
trians doing unto her. The result is a patch-
work of states, none satisfied, and all reduced to
political unrest and economic chaos. The two
formerly dominant peoples of the Hapsburg Em-
pire, the Austrians and the Hungarians, were
given a large dose of the medicine they had long
been prescribing to their subject peoples.

Invoking the sacred principle of nationality,
Italy triumphantly completed her unification by
adding the "unredeemed Italians" of the Haps-
burg Empire. But with them she insisted on in-
corporating in Greater Italy hundreds of thou-
sands of Austrians and South Slavs. The prin-
ciples invoked here were historical and strategi-
cal. The Adriatic must become an Italian lake.
To accomplish this and to have a strategic fron-

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

tier, nearly 300,000 Austrians of the Tyrol were
separated from their compatriots, and a like num-
ber of Slovenes, Croats, and Dalmatians were
prevented from joining the Greater Serbia of
their dreams.

To make a strong Czechoslovakia the Paris
conference asserted the validity of the historical
argument against Germany and Austria, and
chose a boundary-line for the new state which left
nearly three million Germans subject to less than
twice as many Czechs. When a delegation of
Germans from Bohemia protested against this
decision, Mr. Lloyd George reminded them that
their ancestors had followed conquering armies to
settle in Bohemia, and that they had the privilege
of going back where they came from if they
wanted to. The Peace Conference, he said, was
righting historical wrongs. They answered that
they were three times as numerous as the Scotch
who had gone to Ireland, and had been in Bo-
hemia two centuries longer than the inhabitants
of the Belfast region. If this solution was a just
one, why was not the Ulster problem to be solved
in the same way by a return of the North Ire-
landers to Scotland? But that was different ! It
all came back to the old principle of vae victis —
woe to the conquered. The Czechs were given
also a bit of Upper Silesia ; the Hungarian town
of Poszony or Pressburg (renamed Bratislava),

ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON

for an outlet on the Danube, with half a million
Hungarians along the Danube, so that the fron-
tier of the new states would separate Vienna from
Budapest and come within thirty-five miles of
Budapest ; and half a million Ruthenians, so that
Czechoslovakia would dominate Hungary from
the Carpathians.

To Poland was allotted Galicia. The eastern
part of this province contains more than three
million Ruthenians, in territory contiguous to
Ukrainia, which is inhabited by a people of the
same blood and language. This manifest injus-
tice was covered in the Treaty of St. -Germain by
making Eastern Galicia a separate territory,
under Polish mandate, with a plebiscite after
twenty years. But the Poles have already man-
aged to remove the flaw in their title.

The additions to Rumania freed several million
Rumanians from Hungarian rule, but put about
an equal number of Hungarians, Germans, Serbs,
and people of other races in Greater Rumania.
Hungary was deprived of her iron and coal.
Greater Serbia was allotted one of the finest
towns of Hungary, Szabadka (Maria-theresi-
opel), an overwhelmingly Hungarian city, now
cut off by the Serbian boundary from the farming
country it had prospered in serving. The excuse
for this glaring injustice was that Serbia needed
to control the railway line passing from Croatia

125

EUROPE SINCE 1918

to the territories detached from Hungary for the
benefit of Rumania. There are several instances
of this sort of thing in the treaties.

But while the treaties of St. -Germain and Tri-
anon limited Austria and Hungary to frontiers
well within what the application of the principle
of self-determination would have given them,
even the non-German and non-Magyar elements
in border regions felt that they, too, were sacri-
ficed to the exigencies of international politics.
Poles and Czechs were dissatisfied with the
Silesian frontier and came to blows over it;
Ruthenians received no recognition whatever of
their right to nationhood; Slovaks suffered on
economic grounds through separation from Hun-
gary; Rumania and Serbia both -claimed the
Banat of Temesvar ; and Jugoslavs had to be con-
tent with partial liberation, because in many re-
gions the Jugoslavs simply changed masters, be-
ing turned over by the peace conference to Italy.

Plebiscites were provided for in two border
regions only ; and in these instances the motive
was not that of vindicating the principle of self-
determination. The district of Klagenfurt re-
mained with Austria after its inhabitants had
voted against Serbia. This was done because its
possession by the Jugoslavs would have embar-
rassed Italy. A slice of West Hungary was
awarded to Austria for the obvious purpose

126

ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON

of making bad blood between the two enemy
peoples.

Hungary, because of the richness of her soil,
was able to live in the limits imposed by the
Treaty of Trianon. But the Treaty of St. -Ger-
main reduced Austria to a little state of six mil-
lion souls, more than a third of whom lived in the
city of Vienna. Upon the Austrians was saddled
a huge indemnity. Not only was the indemnity
impossible to maintain, but the existence even of
such a country as was provided for the Austrians
to live in was questioned by economists. The
Austrians were reduced to dire poverty in the city
of Vienna, and condemned to a hopeless future
by the provision of the treaty forbidding them to
unite with Germany. The Treaty of St. -Ger-
main is the most striking example in history
of vengeance wreaked upon defenseless people.
Never had the tables been so suddenly and com-
pletely turned.

And yet the Austrians were only one of sev-
eral peoples in the Hapsburg Empire who had
made common cause with Germany. Statesmen
and generals in highest places throughout the
war had been Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs.
With the exception of the Czechs, all the peoples
of the Dual Monarchy had fought well through-
out the war. It is patent that Austria-Hungary
could never have gone through four years of war

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

had not the landed aristocracy, the bankers, and
the manufacturers of all the peoples of the empire
supported and cooperated with the Vienna Gov-
ernment until the game was clearly up. But, as
soon as the armistice was signed, the liberated
peoples received immunity, doffed their uniforms
and decorations, and asserted that they had been
forced to fight against their liberators. This was
not true of the great majority of them. The
Jugoslavs were always bitter against the Italians.
Until the latter part of 191 7 the Poles had no
kindly feeling for the allies of Russia, while the
Austrians were their best friends. The Ruma-
nians, like the Italians, had hesitated about aban-
doning their neutrality until the bribe had been
made sufficiently attractive. At Vienna and
Budapest throughout the war the upper classes
of subject peoples were heart and soul (or at
least acted as if they were!) with the cause of the
Central Empires. Only the Czechs — and not the
majority of them — had shown themselves dis-
loyal.

This was natural. The Dual Monarchy was a
system, a complicated system; and the picture
painted for us of Germans and Magyars, less
than twenty millions; lording it brutally over
more than thirty millions of other races is hardly

half true. The national antagonism between Ger-

128

ST. GERMAIN AND TRIANON

man and Czech was largely local, and was not
remedied by the Treaty of St. -Germain. The
Poles were very well off under Austrian rule.
Jugoslavs preferred the Germans to the Italians.
The great mass of Rumanians in Hungary were
better educated, further advanced in self-govern-
ment, and much more independent economically
than the Rumanians in Rumania. The truth is
that, with the exception of the Czechs, the various
peoples of the Hapsburg Empire were aware of
their common economic interests, and saw the
advantages of belonging to a great country.
Worked upon by irredentist propaganda from the
outside, there had been the struggle between cul-
ture and pocketbook, with a victory for the latter
up to the time of the collapse of the Hapsburg
Empire.

If the Paris Conference had had at heart the
best interests of the peoples of Austria-Hungary,
they would have maintained the organism that
united these peoples with common interests under
, some new program of federation. The Treaties
of St. -Germain and Trianon are inspired by Brit-
ish, French, and Italian interests, and not by a
desire to make a better world to live in along the
Danube. Under the nose of President Wilson,
these interests were amicably adjusted by com-
promises and bargains. The question was never

129

EUROPE SINCE 1918

debated as to whether it would not be best for the
peoples concerned to keep some form of a union,
in which Austrian and Hungarian domination
would no longer prevail.

The Entente Powers had their reasons for
wanting to break up the Hapsburg dominions.
Italy entered the war for this purpose. If the
old political organism had been readjusted, Slavic
predominance would have appeared to the Italians
as a greater menace to their security than the old
arrangement of Austrian and Hungarian joint
hegemony. Great Britain and France were de-
termined that Germany should never again have
the Danubian countries as a reservoir from which
to draw for armies to support her schemes. The
dissolution of the empire blocked forever Ger-
many's Drang nach Osten. The Treaties of St.-
Germain and Trianon cut Germany off from the
Balkans and the Ottoman Empire. France had
in mind a cordon of allies, separating Russia
from Germany, and opening up the path to
France from the North Sea to the Black Sea.
Most important of all, the disappearance of Aus-
tria-Hungary removed the formidable commer-
cial rivalry possible when fifty million people lived
under a united government in a common customs
area.

The only danger foreseen was the possibility
of Austria joining Germany. This the Entente

130

ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON

Powers thought they had taken care of by deny-
ing to the Germans the political unity achieved
by all the other peoples of Europe.

The logical alternatives confronting the peace-
makers were either establishing a new Danubian
federation or allowing free rein to the national
instinct as opposed to economic expediency.
Blinded by the extent of their victory, and be-
trayed into the fallacy of believing that some
national movements could be encouraged and ap-
proved and others discouraged and stamped out,
the Entente Powers forgot economic and political
laws. They chose neither alternative. They be-
lieved that they could use the power the victory
gave them for the furtherance of their own selfish
interests. But they forgot that this power was
theirs because they were united, and that treaties
inspired by their own interests and imposed by
force would remain in vigor only so long as they
remained united.

In the Treaties of St. -Germain and Trianon
the Entente Powers departed farther than in the
Treaty of Versailles from the ideals so nobly pro-
claimed during the war. In his speech of Janu-
ary 5, 191 7, Mr. Lloyd George had anticipated
Mr. Wilson when he told the House of Commons :

Equality of right among nations, small as well as
great, is one of the fundamental issues that this country
and her allies are fighting to establish in this war. . , .

131

EUROPE SINCE 1918

We feel that government by consent of the governed
must be the basis of any territorial settlement. ... A
territorial settlement must be secured, based on the right
of self-determination or the consent of the governed.

132

CHAPTER VIII

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT AND
ITS EFFECT UPON BULGARIA
AND ALBANIA

IF the Paris Conference had in mind a durable
peace, no problem ought to have received more
careful and judicial attention than that of
the Balkan settlement. Since the first revolts
against Turkish rule in Serbia and the War of
Greek Independence, a hundred years of unsettled
political condition in southeastern Europe had
passed. It had become a truism that the conflicts
among the powers began in the Balkans. Ser-
bia's difficulties with Austria-Hungary had pre-
cipitated the World War. But the causes of the
war went back deep into the roots of Balkan
history, long before either Germany or Italy
played leading roles in the councils of the great
powers. What the Balkan peoples had sorely
needed, in their bloody struggle for freedom from
the Ottoman yoke, was non-interference of the
great powers in their internal affairs and their
relations among themselves. But this they had
never enjoyed.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

Disinterested friendship was not shown to the
Balkan peoples in their 'fight for emancipation.
They were encouraged to seek backing from
powerful European states, and then, when they
had done this, they provoked the enmity of the
powers who were rivals of their actual or sup-
posed backers. In the game for political and eco-
nomic influence in the Balkans, the great powers
were accustomed to use the little Balkan peoples
as pawns. Thus they were set against each
other. When they became independent states
their boundaries were not fixed by mutual com-
promises but by the great powers. Thus they
were not allowed a normal political evolution. It
was hoped that the World War had taught the
powers a lesson, and that they would have become
converted to the idea of a "live and let live" pol-
icy for the Balkans, attainable only by a "hands
off" policy on the part of the great powers.

Experts in Balkan affairs knew that the three
great problems of the Balkans — Thrace, Mace-
donia, and Albania — had not been solved by the
Balkan wars and the Treaties of London and
Bucharest. The Turks were still in Thrace.
Macedonia had not been equitably divided. The
frontiers of Albania had not been fixed. It was
hoped that the bitter experiences of the World
War would demand of the peacemakers a cou-

i34

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

rageous and far-seeing solution of these prob-
lems.

But from the moment the armistice was signed
the attitudes of the powers toward Turkey be-
came divergent ; the sufferings of the Armenians
and Greeks were forgotten; and Italy was given
a free hand in Albania in the hope that she would
not demand too much in Asia Minor or anything
at all in Africa at the expense of French and
British ambitions. As for Bulgaria, it was de-
cided to impose upon her a punitive peace, follow-
ing the lines of the treaties imposed upon Ger-
mans, Austrians, and Hungarians.

Eastern Thrace, to the Maritza River line, was
all that had been left of the Ottoman Empire in
Europe after the two Balkan wars. Western
Thrace, with a stretch of sea-coast from the mouth
of the Maritza west for sixty miles, had remained
Bulgarian by the Treaty of Bucharest. In an-
swer to President Wilson at the beginning of
1 91 7, the Entente Powers had declared their in-
tention of driving the Turks definitely out of
Europe. Seemingly living up to this promise, the
Big Four decided to take Eastern Thrace away
from Turkey. But at the same time they took
Western Thrace from Bulgaria, thus cutting her
off from exit to the sea. The Treaty of Neuilly
provided that transit and port facilities be granted

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

Bulgaria. But this provision has not been exe-
cuted.

The reason for separating Western Thrace
from Bulgaria was the same as for separating
Eastern Thrace from Turkey, that the two na-
tions had joined the Central Empires in a war of
aggression and were unworthy to rule over these
provinces. But, later, Eastern Thrace was given
back to Turkey. When the Bulgarians begged
for the return of Western Thrace, on the ground
that it was their outlet to the sea, the plea was
rejected. It is clear, then, that the reasons in-
voked, punishment for a war of aggression and
unfitness to rule over minorities in the ceded terri-
tories, were simply subterfuges. The rearrange-
ment, like the arrangement, was made in the in-
terests of the Entente Powers, without considera-
tion for the wishes of the inhabitants or the eco-
nomic needs of Bulgaria.

All the world knows that Macedonia has been
for more than forty years the great bone of con-
tention among Bulgarians, Serbians, and Greeks,
who have been pitted against one another in this
region by the Turks and the great powers alike.
The Balkan alliance came to grief over the ques-
tion of the partition of Macedonia. The crying
injustice of the Treaty of Bucharest was what
gave Germany her most powerful argument to in-
duce Bulgaria to join the Central Empires. The

136

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

bribe offered Bulgaria by Germany was the same
as the bribe offered Italy and Rumania by the
Entente Powers, the emancipation of "unre-
deemed" provinces. Because there had not been
a fair partition of Macedonia in the Treaty of
Bucharest, Bulgaria joined the Central Empires,
and was able to do tremendous mischief to the
cause of the Entente Powers. Germany had her
bridge through to the Ottoman Empire. She
was enabled to go to the aid of the Turks, attacked
at Gallipoli. The war was probably prolonged
by two years because of the Macedonian ques-
tion !

But the Treaty of Neuilly, far from providing
a solution of the Macedonian question, only made
it worse by depriving Bulgaria of still more terri-
tory inhabited by Bulgarians. The new line be-
tween Serbia and Bulgaria was drawn still more
to the advantage of Serbia than in 191 3; and So-
fia, the capital of Bulgaria, was brought nearer
the frontier, and placed at the mercy of armies
advancing along the railway lines from the north-
west and the southwest. In vain did experts on
the Balkans bring to the attention of the Peace
Conference the fact that the frontiers of the
Treaty of Neuilly would tend to increase and not
diminish causes for a new war in the Balkans.
Bulgaria, cut off from the ^gean Sea by the loss
of Western Thrace, excluded still more rigorously

i37

EUROPE SINCE 1918

from Macedonia, and put in an indefensible mili-
tary position as regards her capital, would have
economic, ethnographic, and strategic reasons to
take the first opportunity to get rid of the inequali-
ties imposed upon her and the discriminations
against her normal national development.

The Treaty of Neuilly presupposed, as did the
other treaties of the Paris settlement, the complete
encirclement of the victim by neighbors bound to-
gether by the common interest of keeping her
permanently in a position of inferiority. It did
not take into account, moreover, two possibilities :
the intervention of Russia and the drifting apart
of Rumania, Serbia, and Greece. A patchwork
peace, a peace based on expediency, could ignore
these possibilities. A durable peace would have
to take them into account. Already we have seen
the Turks back in Eastern Thrace, with a common
frontier once more with Bulgaria. We have seen
Greece, strong in 1920, grievously weakened, in-
ternally and internationally, in 1923. Greater
Serbia and Greater Rumania are not really
friends. They still claim against each other the
Banat of Temesvar. Greater Serbia is not at the
end of her difficulties with Italy. Greater Ru-
mania holds Bessarabia in defiance of 'Russia.
If Italians and Serbians, or Russians and Ruma-
nians, come to blows, the aid of Bulgaria would
once more be solicited by great powers. If the

138

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

war between Greece and Turkey is renewed,
Turkey, perhaps with Russia behind her, will once
more solicit the aid of Bulgaria in a war that
would be bound to spread to western Europe. In-
stead of saying that the Bulgarians would be fool-
ish to try for the third time to change their luck
in a war, is it not wiser and saner, in view of the
mischief Bulgaria could still accomplish, to insist
upon a peace of justice, so that Bulgaria could not
again be tempted ?

We cannot get rid of the latent power of any
of our former enemies simply by damning them,
the Bulgarians least of all. Their progress dur-
ing the last half-century has been remarkable.
They were the last of the Balkan peoples to be
allowed to establish a separate national life, free
from Turkish interference. Despite this handi-
cap, Bulgaria has developed more rapidly than
her neighbors in literacy, communications, culti-
vation of the land, and peasant ownership of
farms. Out of every hundred inhabitants thir-
teen children go regularly to school, while Greece
counts but six, Rumania five, and Serbia four.
Among European countries Bulgaria is second
only to France in distribution of the ownership
of land. The World War did not seriously affect
the prosperity of the people, and the crushing
defeat of their hope made slight, if any, difference
in their productive energy. Since the war they

139

EUROPE SINCE 1918

have forged ahead fast; their Government has
succeeded in maintaining its stability against great
odds; and in the spring of 1923 Bulgaria, first of
all the vanquished, was able to make definite and
satisfactory reparations arrangements with the
victors.

This is only partly due, however, to the innate
sobriety and habits of work of the Bulgarian
people. They have enjoyed the advantage of not
having a large industrial population, herded to-
gether in cities, and dependent for prosperity upon
ability to compete on equal terms in world mar-
kets. And no sooner was the ink dry on the
Treaty of Neuilly than the Entente Powers began
once more secretly at Sofia to win a favorite posi-
tion, as they had done in the past. All wanted
to do business with the Bulgarians. Great Brit-
ain and France were anxious to keep Sofia from
a rapprochement with Moscow. This meant
everything to Rumania, also. France thought
Bulgaria might some day be useful against
Greece, and Italy needed a revived Bulgaria with
which to threaten Greece and Serbia.

If only Greece and Serbia can be properly "man-
aged" by their supporters of 1919, it is within
the possibility of Entente diplomacy to expect to
see the Treaty of Neuilly modified, in its political
as well as its economic clauses, within the near
future. Greece has already had that experience

140

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

in regard to Turkey. If the Entente Powers feel
that it is to their interest to do so, they will not
hesitate to offer Bulgaria, at the expense of
Greece and Serbia, what they took away from her
in 1919, to the profit of Greece and Serbia. There
is already talk of Rumania modifying her south-
ern frontier in the Dobrudja in favor of Bulgaria.
An offer of this sort Rumania will certainly make
if she is threatened with invasion by Russia.

The dominant role in post-bellum Bulgaria has
been played by Premier Stambulisky, who owed
his position to the confidence he won several years
ago and has maintained up to the Revolution in
the Agrarian party. His remarkable hold upon
the Bulgarian peasantry was due to his cleverness
in saving this largest element in the country from
feeling the financial consequences of losing the
war. He has deliberately catered to the peasants,
frankly basing his power upon their support and
as frankly shaping his attitude toward problems
as they arose by the desire to keep the favor of
the peasants. In defiance of the Nationalists,
Stambulisky came to an agreement with the Rep-
arations Commission to give them powers over
Bulgarian revenues in return for low taxation of
the peasants. This hastened his downfall.

A grave source of internal danger is the Mace-
donian League, which is extremely active, and
which cannot be controlled because the army is

141

EUROPE SINCE 1918

far too small to patrol effectively the Serbian
frontier. At least three hundred thousand Mac-
edonian refugees, among them people of wealth
and influence, are living in Bulgaria, and they
form a third of the population of the capital.
From highest to lowest they work to foment the
Macedonian revolutionary movement, and this
makes serious trouble with the Serbian Govern-
ment in its new territories, which can be held only
by martial law. Bands are formed in Bulgarian
territory, make raids, and then return to Bulgaria
for refuge. This condition the Bulgarian Gov-
ernment is powerless to remedy. The Treaty of
Neuilly, by proscribing conscription, makes it im-
possible for Bulgaria to raise troops. King Boris
told me in the summer of 1922 that of the thirty-
three thousand allowed by the treaty he had been
able to get only fifty-five hundred. I found on
personal investigation that most of the volunteers
for the army came from the dregs of the popula-
tion, men who could make a living in no other
way.

On April 22, 1923, Premier Stambulisky won a
sweeping victory in the General Election. Out
of 246 seats in the Sobranje (Parliament) the
Peasant Party won 213. In the previous Parlia-
ment he had had only no followers. The 50
Communists of the 1920 Parliament dropped
to 15. The Bourgeois, united, carried only 12

142

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

seats, electing three former premiers, Malinoff,
Theodoroff, and Daneff, and two former min-
isters, Madjarlow and Dankaloff, who were in
prison charged with high treason for having mis-
led Bulgaria during the World War.

M. Stambulisky stood for the loyal execu-
tion of the peace treaty, on the ground that Bul-
garia's real interests lie in economic and inter-
national political rehabilitation, and not in more
military adventures. He did not conceal the
hope that the establishment of friendly relations
with the Entente Powers and Serbia would lead
to a radical revision of the Treaty of Neuilly, es-
pecially in regard to Western Thrace.

Bulgaria demonstrates the fact that a nation
in defeat is not necessarily "down and out." The
country is not going to smash, no matter what
burdens are laid upon the people and no matter
how harsh may be the fetters forged to keep Bul-
garia behind her neighbors. Four years after
the war, Bulgaria had completed the deliveries of
animals exacted by the Treaty of Neuilly, and yet
the country was entirely under cultivation, with
a surplus of cereal of more than a million tons
for export; and the export had begun again of
hides, beef on the hoof, and sheep. Above the
reparations coal sent annually to Serbia, Bulgaria
was mining enough for her needs and exporting
a surplus. With the country in this condition,
Bolshevism could be discounted.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

This hope was disappointed. At the end of
May it was announced at Lausanne that Venizelos
had come to an agreement with Ismet Pasha
which involved the cession to Turkey of a strip on
the left bank of the Maritza around Karagatch,
so that Turkey would have control of the railway
station of Adrianople and be better able to pro-
tect that city. From the Greek point of view this
was a diplomatic triumph. It was the slight
price paid for Turkey's renunciation of a war in-
demnity. But it made more hopeless than ever
the fulfilment of the promise to Bulgaria in the
Treaty of Neuilly, that she should be guaranteed
a free exit to the TEgean Sea. It pointed also to
the great moral of the World War, that if one
possessed the force one could do in this world
what one pleased. The Turks resisted the Treaty
of Sevres. Immediately the Entente Powers re-
leased them from all the inconveniences and dis-
advantages of having been on the losing side in
the war. Why, then, should Bulgaria tamely
submit to do the bidding of the Entente Powers,
especially when being good meant being still fur-
ther penalized?

"Added to the unpopularity of Stambulisky's
foreign policy of abject surrender — so different
from the example given by Mustafa Kemal Pasha
in similar circumstances — was his domestic policy
of running Bulgaria solely in the economic in-

144

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

terest of the agrarian population. A few days af-
ter the news of Turkey's crowning Thracian suc-
cess at Lausanne reached Bulgaria, the bourgeois
of Sofia, supported by former army officers and
the Macedonian party, overthrew the Stambulisky
Government. Stambulisky was pursued and
killed. Professor Zankoff, of the University of
Sofia, formed a revolutionary government, and
Bulgaria entered upon a new Nationalist era
which is bound to result eventually in a radical
modification of the Treaty of Neuilly.

As part of the price of Italian intervention, the
Entente Powers agreed to give Italy the foothold
in the Balkans she had so long coveted, offering
her full sovereignty over Valona, the island of
Sasseno, "and surrounding territory of sufficient
extent to assure defense of these points." Italy,
on her side, consented to the eventual division of
northern and southern Albania between Monte-
negro, Serbia, and Greece. But the Albanians
proved themselves able to vindicate by arms their
right to survive as an independent country. The
treatment of Albania is an example of the cyni-
cism of the protestation of "the rights of small
nations" as a war aim of the Entente Powers,
and an illustration of the necessity for every peo-
ple to rely ultimately upon its own strength to
vindicate its rights.

Throughout the World War Albania was a

EUROPE SINCE 1918

battle-field of the opposing groups. After the
downfall of Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, the
Austro-Hungarians occupied northern and cen-
tral Albania. In November, 1916, the Italians
landed at Valona. The Greeks had already occu-
pied Epirus, but were succeeded by the Italians
and French. On June 3, 191 7, Italy proclaimed
the independence of all Albania under Italian pro-
tection, and formed a cabinet of marionettes,
which sent a delegation, under Italian guidance,
to the Peace Conference. In the meantime the
French tried to checkmate the Italian scheme,
while the Serbians, when the Austrians finally
retreated, seized Mount Tarabosh, dominating
Scutari.

At Paris an effort was made to adjust the rival
claims of Italy, Serbia, and Greece ; and no atten-
tion was paid to the claim of the Albanians that
they were a nation, very much alive, and not dis-
posed to be partitioned. Were the victorious
powers going to resurrect Poland, on the ground
that her partition had been a horrible crime, and
then go ahead and do the same thing themselves ?
This pointed question was answered on January
14, 1920, when Great Britain, France, and Italy
decreed anew the complete partition of Albania
among Italians, Serbians, and Greeks. President
Wilson sent a formal note to the three Govern-
ments, declaring the opposition of the United

146

THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT

States to any such scheme. The Entente states-
men explained that they did not mean to do what
they had announced, and then went on with their
plans. The Albanians protested without avail to
the League of Nations. Then they decided to
fight. In June, 1920, began a five weeks' struggle
with Italy. The Italians were defeated every-
where and were literally driven into the sea, being
compelled to evacuate even Valona. The Serbs,
who had advanced on Tirana, were driven back to
the lowlands.

These successes decided the fate of Albania.
Italy signed an agreement on August 2, 1920, rec-
ognizing Albania's independence, and promising
to withdraw what troops she had left in the north.
Albania was invited to join the League of Nations,
and was formally admitted in January, 192 1. Be-
cause she retained arms in hand while negotiat-
ing with Serbia, Albania was able to secure,
through the League of Nations, a compromise
frontier.

One Balkan state, however, was not able to
escape the fate of suppression of its nationhood, as
Albania had done. Montenegro was refused a
seat at the Peace Conference, and has been forci-
bly incorporated into Greater Serbia.

147

CHAPTER IX

THE PROPOSED DEVOLUTION OF THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE

IF a new Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep at
any time in the nineteenth century and awoke
to-day, one column in the morning newspaper
would afford him no sensation and surprise.
Were his eye to fall first upon a despatch from
Constantinople, he would read it without discover-
ing his long sleep. Metternich and Castlereagh
and Talleyrand, Palmerston and Napoleon III,
Bismarck and Disraeli and Waddington would
find history repeating itself with a vengeance on
the Bosphorus.

Throughout the World War and during the
period of equal duration that followed the col-
lapse of Turkey, European diplomacy ran true to
form in the Near East. None can study the his-
tory of the great powers in relation to the Bal-
kans and Turkey and maintain that the crisis of
1914-23 shows a difference of spirit and methods
from the crises of 1801-15, 1821-30, 1833-40,
1851-56, 1875-78, 1885-86, 1893-1903, and
1908-13. This is a peculiarly distressing and

148

DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

hopeless statement to make more than four years
after the creation of the League of Nations. But
the truth does not set us free unless we know the
truth.

Some who believe that the world was regener-
ated by reason of our victory over the Germans,
and that the high principles of President Wilson
are triumphing in international affairs because
"after all we have the League of Nations," de-
clare that the Near Eastern situation is simply one
failure which should not discredit the peace settle-
ment as a whole. One hears them argue on the
platform and one sees their articles — especially
"letters to the editor" — flooding the press. We
cannot expect perfection, they say, and the United
States should be ashamed to have failed joining
our comrades-in-arms to inaugurate a new era
in world affairs. Differences of opinion among
the Entente Powers ? Friction in the Near East ?
Inability to agree upon a common policy to adopt
toward Turkey ? These are minor matters. The
great fact is that the League of Nations is func-
tioning!

The Near Eastern situation, however, is not a
minor matter, and insisting upon having a hand in
it would have been the first move of the League of
Nations, had that organization been capable of
tackling the problems to meet and provide a solu-
tion for which it was ostensibly created. The

149

EUROPE SINCE 1918

bloody wars of the nineteenth century had their
origin in international rivalry in the -Near East.
The inability of Turkey to retain her European
provinces made inevitable the recent World War.
The war began in the Balkans, and there was no
hope of its ending until a decisive victory had been
won in the Balkans. Nor is there any hope of
world peace until peace is made in the Balkans.
The future of Constantinople has been the domi-
nating factor in setting the great powers against
one another since the World War precisely as be-
fore the World War. The elimination of Ger-
many from the group of 'contestants does not
seem to make any difference. When there is a
bone, one dog less does not mean the end of the
fight.

The armistice of Mudros, signed on October
30, 191 8, gave the Entente Powers control of Con-
stantinople and the Straits and stipulated the
evacuation of the Russian Transcaucasian prov-
inces by the Turks. Mesopotamia, Palestine,
and Syria were already in Allied hands by con-
quest. Immediately after the armistice the Brit-
ish pressed forward into Cilicia. Three days be-
fore the armistice with Germany, Great Britain
and France issued a joint declaration in the Near
East, announcing that they had no designs upon
these countries but were there simply as liberators,

150

DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

with the intention of helping the oppressed non-
Turkish elements of the Ottoman Empire to attain
complete independence.

But the Entente Powers, separately and to-
gether, were already bound by secret agreements
which contained their real intentions concerning
the devolution of the Ottoman Empire. In
March, 191 5, the British and French Governments
agreed that Russia was to have Constantinople
and the European hinterland up to a line drawn
from Enos on the /Egean to Midia on the Black
Sea ; the islands in the Sea of Marmora ; Imbros
and Tenedos outside the Dardanelles; and the
coast of Asia Minor from the Bosphorus to the
mouth of the Sakaria River across to the Gulf of
Ismid. In exchange, Russia assented to the giv-
ing of the middle neutral zone of Persia to Great
Britain and to the proclamation of the independ-
ence of Arabia. This agreement was enlarged,
after Italy entered the war, to give Russia all of
Armenia as a sphere of influence.

On April 26, 191 5, Great Britain, France, and
Russia, among the bribes offered in the secret
Treaty of London, promised Italy full sovereignty
over the Dodecanese Islands and the port- of
Adalia, in the southwestern corner of Asia Minor,
with the strategic hinterland. This was after-
ward enlarged to include a generous quarter or

151

EUROPE SINCE 1918

more of Asia Minor, going north to include
Smyrna and east to include Konia in the Italian
sphere of influence.

In May, 191 6, France and Great Britain, to
whom had been left by Russia and Italy the non-
Turkish-speaking portions of the empire as spoils,
concluded the Sykes-Picot agreement, by which
France was to have Syria and Cilicia with the
hinterland to Mosul, while Great Britain was to
take Mesopotamia and Palestine.

Beginning in the summer of 191 5, British emis-
saries began to treat with Sherif Hussein of
Mecca to induce him to revolt against the Turks.
Negotiations were carried on for a year. The
revolution broke out at the beginning of June,
191 6, when Hussein proclaimed himself independ-
ent of Ottoman rule. In December, 1916, Great
Britain, France, and Italy recognized the Hedjaz
as an independent kingdom, with Hussein for
sovereign. The support of the Arabs being vital
to the British both in the Mesopotamian and
Palestinian expeditions, the British Government
made secret promises to King Hussein of terri-
torial arrangements which conflicted with their
earlier promises to the French. This was re-
vealed at the Peace Conference when Emir Feisal,
the king's son, presented the claims of his country
to the Council of Ten. The Hedjaz signed the
peace treaty and became a member of the League

152

DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

of Nations. The English were involved also in
promises given to the Arab tribes of Mesopotamia
and the Yemen, made when the situation was des-
perate, and to the Egyptians. Adding to the
embarrassing conflicts in these promises, on De-
cember 2, 19 1 7, the British Government, by what
is known as the Balfour Declaration, promised to
make Palestine a "home-land" for the Jews!

The defection of Russia reopened the most
thorny problem of all, the control of Constanti-
nople and the Straits. When the war was over,
British, French and Italians occupied Constanti-
nople, not very harmoniously, while their states-
men, still less harmoniously, wrangled and bar-
gained over the disposition of the city.

When the Peace Conference opened, the French
aim was to become the dominant power in the
eastern Mediterranean. Frenchmen of the old
school and young illuminati alike had never for-
given Great Britain for grabbing Cyprus and do-
ing France out of the Suez Canal and Egypt.
Even the Frenchmen most in sympathy with the
British were nervous, realizing that the forte of
Great Britain after every war was to reap where
she had sown not. When a peace treaty was
signed aftei a war — any war — the choicest bits of
spoils were found to have entered into the joy of
the pax britannica. After this war, the first one
with extra-European spoils in which the French

*53

EUROPE SINCE 1918

had been on the winning side — that is, Britain's
side — they determined to have a different deal.
Canada and India, Egypt and many islands, were
past history. The Near East had been culturally
French since the crusades. From Saloniki to
Beirut, France was determined to reign supreme.
Palestine represented the very last concession it
was possible for the French to make. Of course,
they did not hope to possess Constantinople, but
they were not going to let the British settle them-
selves on the Bosphorus as they had done at Gib-
raltar and Port Said. This would mean British
domination of the Mediterranean and Black Seas,
and for British capital and goods the priority in
markets that had been traditionally French.

Up to the time of the armistice, and afterward
until the collapse of Baron Wrangel, France hoped
for the miracle of the regeneration of Russia.
This would have solved the Constantinople ques-
tion. And as long as Venizelos was in power in
Greece the French did not despair of preventing
Greece from becoming infeudated to Great Brit-
ain. But aspirations in the eastern Mediterra-
nean had to be subordinated to the more important
aspiration of controlling the Rhine.

The British Foreign Office saw this from the
very beginning of the Peace Conference and indi-
cated to Mr. Lloyd George the successive moves
in a skilful game. The British premier balked

i54

DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

every time his French colleagues wanted to speak-
firmly to Germany— balked on the Rhine occupa-
tion, the Saar Valley, the entry into Frankfort,
the taking over of the Ruhr basin, the Upper
Silesian settlement, the amount and method of
payment of the German indemnity, the trial of
war prisoners, and the enforcement of German
disarmament. Much of the opposition was sin-
cere and based on common sense. But every time
Mr. Lloyd George gave in to the French it was
a case of do ut des; one after the other the French
aims in the Near East suffered dimunition at the
expense of British aims. It was not through in-
trigues and superior skill in working out policies
in the Near East that the British gradually gained
control of Constantinople, and extended the fron-
tiers of Mesopotamia and Palestine beyond the
Sykes-Picot line, but by agreeing to back the
French in some new demand upon Germany!

French and British diplomacy, in considering
the devolution of the Ottoman Empire, agreed
on two points only: the necessity of using the
Greeks to prevent Italy's scheme of monopolizing
the commerce of Asia Minor through control of
Smyrna ; and the passing of the buck to the United
States to take over the vast bleak mountains of
Armenia, so that we could become benefactors of
the helpless and policemen to guard against the
infiltration of Bolshevism, while the rich and fer-

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

tile parts of the empire were being exploited by
themselves.1

With all these conflicting aims, motives, and
treaty entanglements, is it any wonder that the
Peace Conference year brought no agreement as
to the terms of the treaty to be imposed upon
Turkey ? When the Treaty of Versailles and the
other treaties were imposed, Germany, Austria,
Hungary, and Bulgaria were compelled to sign a
blank check, agreeing beforehand to whatever

1 The assertion, so often made, that the United States was
offered a share in the exploitation of the Ottoman Empire, and
that the opportunity to aid effectively in the solution of the
Near Eastern problem was rejected by our refusal to accept
President Wilson's mandate scheme, is without foundation. No
such offer was ever made by the Entente Powers. It was not
their intention to grant us any mandate like their own in Asi-
atic Turkey. Within narrow limits that excluded the plains, the
mines, the timber, and the oil-fields, the British, French, and
Italian premiers would have been glad to see created an Arme-
nian state, financed and protected by the Americans, to which
they might deport the Armenians remaining in Asia Minor,
Syria, and Mesopotamia, and which would serve as a buffer
between their sphere of influence and Soviet Russia. This pur-
pose is revealed in a memorandum of General Franchet d'Esperey
to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which he summed up the
resources of the regions inhabited by the Armenians. Citing
the figures of agricultural and mining engineers, military ob-
servers, and railway experts, the general advocated the retention
by France of Cilicia and the upper valley of the Euphrates, on
the ground that this part of Armenia was a rich country that
could be profitably exploited and easily defended, while it was
geographically accessible from the Gulf of Alexandretta on the
Mediterranean. The bare mountains of Armenia he declared
to be without economic value and costly from the points of view
of defense or the establishment of communications. He recom-
mended that these regions should therefore be given to the
United States !

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DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

disposition of the Ottoman Empire the Principal
Allied and Associated Powers might make. So
they were out of it ! But these treaties did contain
a very definite provision for the peoples of Turkey.
Article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant
provides a mandatory government "to those colo-
nies and territories which as a consequence of the
late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty
of states which formerly governed them and which
are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by
themselves under the strenuous conditions of the
modern world." The "well-being and develop-
ment of such people form a sacred trust of civili-
zation," so the Covenant declared, and they were
divided into three classes. The first dealt with
the liberated regions of the Ottoman Empire.
The text is explicit :

Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish
Empire have reached a stage of development where their
existence as independent nations can be provisionally rec-
ognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice
and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they
are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communi-
ties must be a principal consideration in the selection
of the Mandatory.

The mandatory idea was seized upon oy General
Smuts as a way of overcoming Mr. Wilson's
strenuous objection to the fait accompli of the dis-
tribution of Germany's -colonies. The American

EUROPE SINCE 1918

President accepted this in good faith, and agreed
to present to the American people the proposal
that the United States assume the Armenian
mandate. Taking for granted the sincerity of his
colleagues, he proposed that an international com-
mission be sent to the Ottoman Empire to ascer-
tain "the wishes of these communities" in regard
to the selection of mandatory powers. His col-
leagues agreed; but they did not send their dele-
gates. The Americans went alone, and brought
back a report quite at variance with the mandate
distribution as arranged among the Entente
Powers.

What Mr. Wilson did not appreciate was the
fact that the moot questions had been settled long
before the war ended by secret compacts, and that
the object of the Paris Conference was not to
draw up terms of peace, in the interest of the peo-
ples and regions concerned, but to arrive at a satis-
factory adjustment of interests among the victors.
The Turkish treaty was not drafted in 1919 simply
because the Entente premiers could not agree
upon a satisfactory compromise. They paid no
attention to the Covenant, with its mandatory
provision. It was too much to ask of them the
fulfilment of this promise when they were unable
to reconcile their previous commitments.

For instance, Article XII could not be car-
ried out either in Palestine or Syria. Ninety per

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DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

cent of the Palestinians, including thousands of
its Jewish population, were bitterly opposed to
the Balfour Declaration. Mr. Wilson's mandate
commission discovered that the great bulk of the
Syrians were hostile to the French mandate.
When Emir Feisal took over Damascus, in con-
formity with the Anglo-Hedjaz agreement and
the undoubted wishes of its inhabitants, the French
sent an army against him, drove him out, and
hanged "for treason" many of his followers. In
vain the Hedjaz invoked Articles XIII, XV, XVI,
and XVII of the Covenant, which were supposed
to make impossible such an event as the French
expedition against Damascus. The inhabitants
of Palestine, also, have tried for more than four
years to get a hearing from the League of Na-
tions, which has consistently ignored Article
XXII. The Arabs of Mesopotamia were unable
to secure the recognition of their rights until they
had succeeded in driving the British almost en-
tirely out of their country. The French formed
the Armenians of Cilicia into regiments, told them
that they were righting for their independence,
and then deserted them when French interests
seemed to make it advantageous to betray the Ar-
menians and hand Cilicia back to the Turks.

The Conference of Paris adjourned without
having come to an agreement upon three vital
questions: the terms of the treaty with Turkey,

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

the adoption of a common policy toward Russia,
and an understanding as to the means to be em-
ployed to compel Germany to fulfil the terms of
the Treaty of Versailles. These problems led to
a series of continuation conferences from 1920
to 1923, without reaching understandings of even
a quasi-permanent nature. The continuation
conferences as a whole are discussed in another
chapter. Here we shall limit ourselves to the
Conference of San Remo, in April, 1920, which
endeavored to settle the devolution of the Otto-
man Empire by drafting a treaty with Turkey.
The results of its deliberations were the ill-fated
Treaty of Sevres and the demonstration of two
facts: that the three great problems cited above
could not be dissociated; and that the Entente
premiers believed that the League of Nations
could not help in the solution of any one of them.

Had Czarist Russia survived the war, she would
have installed herself at Constantinople. There
would have been no question of international con-
trol of the Straits, an independent Armenia, or
the satisfaction of Greek national aspirations.
When the three premiers met at San Remo, al-
most a year after Premier Venizelos had been
invited at Paris by Great Britain, France, and the
United States to occupy Smyrna, they had to
reckon with electorates weary of war and taxes
and unwilling to engage in further military ven-

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DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

tures in the Near East. Outside of Constanti-
nople, held under the guns of battle-ships, the only
forces available for compelling respect of their
decisions were the Greek armies in Western
Thrace and Smyrna. It was a case either of sur-
rendering the fruits of the victory over Turkey or
of recognizing, in a measure at least, Greek claims.

The first alternative was dismissed. Russia
seemed to be behind Turkish nationalism, and the
Entente Powers feared that a capitulation of Tur-
key would not bring peace, but rather the spread
of Bolshevism in western Asia, the stirring up
again of Bulgaria, the weakening of Rumania and
Poland, and the encouragement of nationalist
movements throughout the Mohammedan world.
It seemed the lesser of two evils to allow the
Greeks to defend Thrace and the Smyrna region
against the Turks by granting the titles Venizelos
claimed. Lloyd George faced the breakdown of
the attempt to make the Caucasus a barrier to
Bolshevism, and Millerand knew that the French
army in the Orient was not strong enough to hold
the positions it had occupied confidently the year
before. In fact, the Nationalists under Mustafa
Kemal Pasha had already defeated the French and
driven them out of several cities, and it was only a
question of time when General Gouraud would be
compelled to ask the Turks for an armistice in

Syria. Premier Nitti had withdrawn the Italian

161

EUROPE SINCE 1918

forces from Konia, and had adopted the policy of
encouraging the Nationalists against the Greeks.
The Greek army might be able to create such a di-
version in Thrace and the hinterland of Smyrna
as to save French prestige and prevent the whole-
hearted cooperation of Turks with Russians.

In regard to Turkey, three decisions were neces-
sary : what territories to detach, how to force the
Turks to give them up, and what to do with them.
The premiers were no more ready to make these
decisions in April, 1920, than they had been the
year before, but there always must be an end to a
transitory period. The delay was affecting the
prestige of the Entente Powers, was giving en-
couragement to Germany, and was threatening
the harmonious relations among the visitors in the
World War.

The compromise of San Remo, embodied in the
treaty to be presented to the Turks at Sevres, fol-
lowed the lines of the other treaties. Its principal
conditions were: (1) open Straits in peace and
war to all ships; (2) control of the Straits by an
international commission; (3) demolition of forti-
fications, and demilitarization within a zone twelve
miles inland from the coast on both sides of the
Bosphorus and Dardanelles, thus excluding the
Turks from Gallipoli peninsula; (4) cession of
Thrace up to the defenses of Constantinople to
Greece; (5) limitations in the Turkish sovereignty

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DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

over Constantinople; (6) Greek protectorate over
Smyrna, with a generous hinterland; (7) Italian
protectorate over Adalia; (8) acceptance of a
boundary in the east to be communicated later,
beyond which Armenia would be independent;
(9) and cession to Great Britain and France of
all the Arabic-speaking portions of the empire.

Certain details were left to direct negotiations
between Italy and Greece; and these led to the
signing of three agreements by Premiers Nitti and
Venizelos, the first of which antedated by several
months the San Remo Conference. Italy prom-
ised to ( 1 ) concede Greek claims in Thrace in
return for withdrawal of Greek claims to the
plain of the Mseander River in Asia Minor; (2)
hand over Northern Epirus to Greece; and (3)
surrender all the islands of the Dodecanese to
Greece, except Rhodes, for which a plebiscite was
to be held after a stipulated number of years.

The Turks gained only two points : the reten-
tion of sovereignty over Constantinople, because
of the intervention of Indian Mohammedans ; and
the return of Cilicia, the claim to which was
waived by France because she was not strong
enough militarily to hold it.

In the disposition of the Arabic-speaking por-
tions of the Ottoman Empire the Treaty of Sevres
clearly and specifically violated Article XXII of

the League of Nations Covenant. Palestine was

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

made a "Jewish national home" under the protec-
tion of Great Britain, and the rest of the loot was
divided in utmost secrecy. The premiers had con-
sulted neither their own parliaments nor the rep-
resentatives of the races whose land they were
cutting up.

The Treaty of Sevres was not signed until
August 10, 1920, and was already discredited
long before the ceremony of the signature. Both
Premiers Millerand and Nitti had spoken openly
against the treaty. The latter said that Italy
would contribute no troops to enforce it, and
doubted the possibility of getting it signed by men
who represented the Turkish nation.

The Treaty of Sevres was declared null and
void by Syrians and Palestinians, who appealed to
the League of Nations. The Arabic press sus-
tained the thesis that the three premiers were
without competency to decide the destinies of the
Arbic-speaking world. They were cosignatories
of the Treaty of Versailles with the delegates of
the free and independent Hedjaz, and were bound
by the Covenant to let the League appoint the
mandatory powers after the liberated races had
been consulted. Unless the creation of the Hed-
jaz was an expedient later to be disavowed and
the League of Nations a cloak for imperialism,
the San Remo Conference was as high-handed and
illegal as it was impolitic. The Hedjaz was the

164

DEVOLUTION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

logical state to consult about the future of Pales-
tine, Syria, and Mesopotamia because of geo-
graphical proximity, ethnological and religious
affinity, and economic interest. Why was not the
Hedjaz as vitally interested in these Arabic-speak-
ing neighboring regions as was Great Britain in
Ireland ?

The Entente premiers at San Remo concluded
a secret agreement concerning spheres of influ-
ence and oil interests in the territories affected by
the Treaty of Sevres, which, when news of it
leaked out, raised an outcry, especially in the
United States. The State Department made a
strong protest against the assumption on the part
of the three Entente Powers of the right to regard
the Ottoman mandates as exclusive monopolies.
This was according to neither the text nor the
spirit of the Peace Conference agreements, em-
bodied in the Covenant.

Premier Nitti had been right in his prophecy
at San Remo that representative Turks could not
be found to sign the treaty. The Turkish delega-
tion at Sevres represented only a Constantinople
Government in captivity to the Entente Powers.
There was a day of mourning at Constantinople
in protest against the treaty. But the Turkish
Nationalists issued a defiance from Angora, de-
claring that the Turks would not be bound by the
signature. Behind them stood not only Soviet

165

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Russia, which had refused to recognize the four
preceding treaties, but also France and Italy, who
had begun to fear that the Greeks were agents of
the British, and that the scheme of demilitarizing
the Straits would mean their control by the domi-
nant sea-power.

The Treaty of Sevres was not ratified. Its
sole hope of success depended upon the Greek
army. In the end it was going to be seen that
force would save Turkey from partition, as h
saved Albania, and that, in the chaos and anarchy
and slaughter ahead, the League of Nations was
going to make no effort to settle the Near East-
ern question.

166

CHAPTER X

THE INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND
FOREIGN POLICY OF RUSSIA
UNDER THE SOVIETS

IN the good old days, when the alliance with
Russia was regarded as the salvation of
France, Romanoffs frequently radiated from
Deauville to other Norman watering-places. The
honor of a visit from a Russian royal person-
age was commemorated in the favorite French
fashion by municipalities where Socialists did not
predominate. So at Houlgate, my summer home,
the street leading to the Grand Hotel used to be
the Rue Marie Feodorovna. In the summer of
1 91 7 we found that the name had been changed to
Rue Prince Lvoff. Before the end of the sum-
mer it became Rue Kerensky in honor of the in-
vestigator of Brusiloff's last offensive. That
name, of course, was no longer possible in 191 8.
In the first summer of the victory, after the sign-
ing of the Treaty of Versailles, events dictated
Rue de l'Amiral Kolchak. It was replaced by
Rue Wrangel, and then the street was taken away

from Russia altogether !

167

EUROPE SINCE 1918

I am not telling this as a funny story, but be-
cause it illustrates the tragedy of France torn
from her moorings, aware of her inability to ride
the storm alone on the high seas of recharted
Europe, not knowing which way to turn, and in-
stinctively cherishing the hope that the bond with
Russia would not be definitely broken. Great
Britain and the United States do not need alliances
with other powers as the essential condition of
national existence. Italy sees the door wide open
to return to the Germanic alliance. But the Rus-
sian revolution confronted France with a problem
that victory over Germany could not solve. Only
with this fact constantly in mind can we discuss
intelligently the internal evolution and foreign
policy of Russia under the Soviets. For all that
has happened in Russia since the overthrow of the
Czarist Government is inextricably bound up with
the attitude of the victors in the World War to-
ward Russia. In the great volume of books and
articles on the experiment with Communism one
finds an almost universal failure to recognize this
fact. Partisans pro and contra have given us
pictures of Soviet Russia that are accurate enough
impressions of confusion and anarchy, but that
are lacking when the attempt is made to explain
how and why these things have happened.

The Russian revolution, occurring at any other

time than in the midst of a war affecting the in-

168

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

terests of all nations, would have been regarded
sympathetically, and its excesses would have been
deemed inevitable. We should have awaited pa-
tiently the outcome, and it is doubtful whether
any country would have shown active hostility to
it or have been tempted to intervene. But, com-
ing when it did, in western Europe and America
the sole thought was to prevent the revolution
from playing into the hands of Germany. Rus-
sia's continued military cooperation was believed
to be essential to victory; and, except for Ger-
many's stupidity in provoking the United States,
the Entente Powers could not have won the war
without Russia. Consequently, Entente diplo-
macy had only one thought, to keep the Russians
in the fighting-line. It was natural, then, that
the logical internal evolution of the movement was
greeted with dismay. Public opinion in Allied
countries read into the events of 191 7 and 191 8 a
deliberate betrayal of the common cause, cleverly
engineered by a common enemy, with the result
that the Russians very soon came to be considered
and treated as enemies.

Forgetting the sacrifices the Russians had
made, the Allied and Associated Powers, without
declaration of war, blockaded Russia, invaded
Russia, supported counter-revolutionary move-
ments, used against Russia the poison gas of prop-
aganda, yielded to the temptation of taking ad-

169

EUROPE SINCE 1918

vantage of Russia's temporary helplessness to ad-
vance their own economic and political interests,
and ignored Russia in all the treaties and agree-
ments their victory gave them the power to make.

Of the leaders of the revolution, in its incip-
iency, we demanded the impossible. We insisted
that they force upon the Russian people the con-
tinuance of the policies of the Czarist Govern-
ment, policies which it had been the purpose of
the revolution to discredit and destroy! None
can study the relations of Russia with the Entente
Powers during 191 7, and not come to the conclu-
sion that the Lvoff and Kerensky Governments
were discredited and overthrown because they
tried to keep Russia in the war without having
secured from Russia's allies a restatement of war
aims. The revolution was anti-imperialist, and
those who led it could keep the confidence of the
people only by assuring them that the enemies of
Germany were fighting for the destruction of im-
perialism, for which Germany stood. Germany
was the enemy of civilization because she wor-
shiped brute force as her god and was waging an
unholy war to dominate the world and to force
other peoples into subjection to her people, so that
they might be exploited for the benefit of German
industry. Czarist Russia, as had been proved by
the secret treaties, had led the Russian people into

170

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

a war, under false pretenses, for the same object
as those that Germany hoped to attain.

Revolutionary Russia renounced all the loot of
the secret treaties. She no longer wanted Con-
stantinople and other portions of the Ottoman
Empire. She was willing to withdraw from
Persia and consent to the emancipation of Poland.
Let Great Britain and France and Italy give the
Russian people solemn assurances that they also
renounce their shares of the hoped-for loot, and
promise that they would apply the principle of
self-determination to peoples subject to them, and
the war would be continued. This proposal was
refused. The refusal gave the Bolshevists their
chance to get control of the revolutionary Gov-
ernment.

The Soviet regime would probably have fol-
lowed the lot of all extremist groups and been
drowned in its own bloodshed had it not been for
the support given by the Entente Powers to vari-
ous counter-revolutionary movements and to the
invasion of Russia at various points by Entente
armies. The Russians came to believe that the
rest of the world was conspiring to destroy them.
They rallied around Lenin and Trotzky, moved
by the instinct of every people to repel the invader.
French, British, Italians, Greeks, Americans,
Japanese thus voluntarily took their place with

171

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Germans as enemies of Russians. Hundreds of
thousands in every part of the country would
have welcomed the counter-revolutionary move-
ments and have stuck by them until the Bolshe-
vists were overthrown had they not become con-
vinced that outside nations were supporting the
counter-revolutionists, not for Russia's sake, but
to feather their own nests. All that happened in
1918, 1919, and 1920 tended to confirm this im-
pression. We accuse the Russians of having- de-
serted the common cause during the war. The
Russians accuse us of having involved them in
a war, in which their losses were greater than
those of any other belligerent, by territorial
bribes to the old Czarist Government, and then,
when regenerated Russia spoke for an idealistic
peace, of having turned against them.

In dealing with the internal evolution and for-
eign policy of Russia during the years follow-
ing the World War, we must get away from
the belief that Boshevism and Russia are synony-
mous and from the comfortable feeling that Rus-
sia's ills and the international troubles those ills
have created for us, are due to the attempt of the
Communists to set up in Russia a Soviet form of
government and to impose their doctrines upon
the rest of the world. This is only one factor,
and not the most important, in the great problem
of Russia's internal and international relations.

172

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

The difficulties arose before the Communists got
control of the Government. They continued
during the period of the Communists' attempt to
demonstrate the practicability of their doctrines.
They remain, now that Communism has proved a
failure in a country where it had a better chance
of success than in any other great nation.1

It is fruitless to maintain, as some zealots do,
that Communism was not given a fair chance and
that its failure is due to the hostility of the world.
The complete disintegration of society in Russia,
when the incentive of reward for production was
removed, demonstrates the visionary character of
the experiment. By successive modifications of
some of their ideas and the abandonment of
others, the leaders of the movement themselves
have confessed that they were unable to make a
go of their communistic theories. Honest for-
eign investigators, no matter how prejudiced they
were when they went, did not need much time
to be convinced that the theories did not work out

1 This statement is sure to be challenged by those who believe
that Communism would have its fairest test in a small thickly
populated industrial country like Belgium or larger industrial
nations such as Germany and England. But we must remem-
ber that Communism does not appeal as strongly to Occidental
peoples as to Slavs and peoples of Central Asiatic origin. In
an Occidental industrial country the Bolshevist theory would
have taken the form of State Socialism demanding to be imme-
diately applied, and the suddenness and insistence of the chal-
lenge would have led to crushing failure within a few months,
followed by a counter-revolution.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

in practice. After six years, the Russian people,
from Lenin down to the humblest peasant, know
that the Government does not function when
private and personal ownership of the machinery
of production is not acknowledged and safe-
guarded. Brains and arms alike are used only
when their possessors know that their efforts
bring them some tangible reward. There will be
no surplus over the day's needs unless there is an
assured title to that surplus. And this means
that no usufruct, for an individual or a com-
munity, is ever created unless definite and invi-
olate ownership has induced the creation.

Soviet theories temporarily destroyed capital
or drove it to cover. But as soon as it was seen
that capital was essential to keep the country
going, the laws passed in the first enthusiasm
were not enforced, and were modified and re-
pealed as quickly as could be done without losing
face. Trading was resumed, and the Govern-
ment began to give the necessary assurances to
its own people first, and then to nationals of for-
eign countries, that the right to amass and trans-
fer possessions would no longer be denied.

That the workmen could be a privileged class
in the community, even though it was upon them
that the revolution, begun and maintained in the
cities, depended, was soon proved to be a fallacy.
Food came from the country; and the peasants

i74

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

could not be forced to raise more than enough
for their own needs unless they got something for
their pains. Once the confiscated stocks gave
out, the workmen in the cities discovered that
they would have to produce what could be given
in exchange for food or they would starve. The
artificial limits set by law on the working day
could no longer be maintained. First of all, an
eight-hour day was established, soon followed by
a six-hour day; wages were constantly raised;
piece-work was prohibited; overtime was not al-
lowed; and unskilled laborers were given the
same pay as skilled workmen. Four years of this
regime convinced the labor leaders that produc-
tive wealth could not be created by legal meas-
ures. To get good workmen back to the fac-
tories and to make possible the payment of wages
that would buy food, virtually all the dreams of
the early days were abandoned. Work on Sat-
urday afternoons was restored, as well as piece-
work and overtime. The pendulum has swung
the other way. The labor day is now from ten
to fourteen hours in most industries. Nearly
fifty thousand workmen in the "Gozma," a state
factory, found themselves compelled to work six-
teen hours; and, when they tried to leave, they
were told that they were militarized, and were
kept at work under threat of court martial with
capital punishment.

i75

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Bolshevist propaganda abroad was a failure
from the beginning. It was evident that a Gov-
ernment which could not succeed in establishing"
the communistic theory in its own country had
nothing to offer to the rest of the world. There
never would have been even a Bolshevist scare
if other Governments had not professed to take
seriously the sending out of emissaries from Mos-
cow to unite the workers of the world in a com-
mon movement against capitalism. Had the Bol-
shevist movement been ignored it would never
have made the stir it did. The horrible example
of conditions in Russia was sufficient counter-
propaganda. The saving grace of common sense
has been enough to checkmate any attempts to
foment a world revolution. Bolshevist propa-
ganda fell on deaf ears, for it could not give a
plausible answer to the argument, "Physician,
heal thyself!"

So much for Bolshevism in its social aspect.
Although the Moscow Soviet still controls, more
strongly than ever, the destinies of Russia, Bol-
shevism has passed into history.

Had the present rulers of Russia been loyal to
their own economic doctrines, they would have
long ago disappeared. But they are politicians
first, and have had in mind from the beginning
the aim of politicians, which is to govern in such
a way as to remain in power. It must be con-

176

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

fessed that their success in subordinating doc-
trines to realities, their knowledge of controlling
the people, and the growth of their qualities as
statesmen have enabled them to prevent the po-
litical disintegration of Russia against great
odds. The errors of their colleagues of Entente
countries and the United States have helped them
over rough places. M(3st important of all, the
outlawing of Russia and the disregard of her
sovereign rights and world interests by other na-
tions have given Lenin and his associates the
impulsion to defend Russia as their country
against the contemptuous rapacity of other na- i
tions. Their activities in this direction won the
approval of all Russians, and gradually they be-
gan to see that their foreign policy was their best
card in appealing for popular support. They
modified, and then abandoned, their early theories
of international relations as cleverly as they aban-
doned their early theories of internal government.

This curious fact is not so curious after all
when we consider that the Russians are human
beings, ignorant perhaps, but not at all unintel-
ligent, and that their reactions to the treatment
their country has received are what ours would
be, were we in their place. The instinct of self-
preservation showed them the fallacy of the Bol-
shevist economic theories. Our blockade and
non-intercourse policy helped to open their eyes

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

to social and economic laws. Similarly, the En-
tente policy of grab, of ignoring Russian in-
terests, of punishing Germany, of tolerating Po-
land's inordinate territorial ambitions, taught the
Soviet leaders the absurdity of playing a lone
hand at internationalism in a world where none
would follow their example but simply where all
would use their profession of disinterestedness to
Russia's disadvantage. Signor Nitti knew what
he was talking about when he said :

Russian hatred is growing more and more bitter
towards those who, during the war, drove her to the
greatest sacrifices, but, when she was crushed by force,
took advantage of her fall, the fall of a friendly people,
to attempt to restore the most brutal absolutism by re-
actionary armies, and then tried to impose a system of
capitulations, in order to obtain the monopoly of her raw
materials and hidden resources. In the future, even if
Bolshevism has to sustain the grave charge of having
reduced Russia to extreme misery by its experiments
in Communism, it will have the glory of having defended
the liberty of the Russian people, and of having re-
nounced every offer of credit rather than forfeit or cur-
tail Russian liberty in the face of the foreigner.

The great economist who, as Italy's premier,
was one of the Big Three during the eventful
year after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles
saw underneath the surface and was able to real-
ize that the manner in which the Entente Powers

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RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

were abusing their victory over Germany was
welding the Russian people together once more
into a powerful and united nation, convinced
that its salvation lay in rallying round the Soviet
Government, arms in hand. Overboard went the
absurd theory of an army in which all the soldiers
had an equal part in the discipline and the deter-
mination of policy and strategy !

In 1918 the Moscow Soviet emphasized the
right of self-determination and encouraged the
non-Russian peoples of the empire to establish
their independence on the theory that the new
world was going to consist of small nations, in
which all peoples would have equal opportunities,
based on inherent rights, and not on the strength
of their armies. With what result? The
French and British came into the Baltic states,
the French into Poland, and French and Greeks
into Ukrainia, the British into the Caucasus and
northern Persia, and the Japanese into Siberia.
The Entente Powers, joined by the United States,
seized Archangel, aided the reactionaries in the
Crimea, and took over the Transsiberian Railway
as a military line for operations against Moscow.
Everywhere they went these precious Allies de-
clared that they were only trying to deliver Rus-
sia from Germany. After Germany was beaten
they said they were remaining in order to restore

order. But secretly they were all the time trying

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

to grab oil and coal and copper and wheat and
timber, and to organize the liberated peoples
against Russia. While this was going on, the
Peace Conference was held at Paris, and it was
seen that none of the victors had any idea of ap-
plying the principle of self-determination except
against the vanquished and Russia. The whole
Paris settlement, including the League of Na-
tions, read like a scheme to eliminate Russia
equally with Germany from the list of great
powers. Followed the continuation conferences
in Europe and the Washington Conference.
Surely no European nation had greater interest
than Russia in the Near East and the Far East.
Surely Russia was the European nation most vi-
tally interested in the creation of Poland, Greater
Rumania, the zone of the Straits, and the future
of China ; was equally interested with Great Brit-
ain in the future of Persia; and had .as vital
rights in the Pacific naval armaments as Japan,
the United States, and Great Britain. And
could the League of Nations be regarded as an
honest effort to ameliorate international condi-
tions without providing a permanent place for
Russia on its Council ?

The thesis adopted by the victors was that the
Soviet Government did not represent the Russian
people. But was it less representative than the
old Czarist Government, to which France and

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RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

Great Britain had allied themselves on equal
terms? Was Lenin less entitled to speak for
Russia than a member of the British Cabinet for
India? Were the Poles more entitled to inde-
pendence than the Irish ? By what right did the
Entente Powers presume to give Bessarabia to
Rumania? Why were British armies in the
Caucasus and northern Persia?

Wholly aside from its internal economic ex-
periment, which was proving a lamentable fail-
ure, the Moscow Government realized that Rus-
sia was doomed to a worse fate than that of the
conquered nations unless these schemes were
checkmated. Theories of international relations
had to be thrown overboard. Self-determination
could not be used as a cloak by the enemies of
Russia for undermining the Russian Empire
while they refused to entertain self-determination
as a principle to be applied within their own
empires.

Germany, powerless, had to submit to the dic-
tates of the victors. Russia did not. Warding
off this danger, of course, meant the abandon-
ment of the ideals preached in 1917 and 1918.
It meant the return of militarism, of centraliza-
tion of power in Moscow, and probably of the old
Czarist Imperialism. There was no choice, how-
ever. The leaders of the Soviets soon became
autocrats, militarists, imperialists. As in their

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

internal affairs, they continued to preach cau-
tiously the original doctrine, but in practice they
fought fire with fire. And they began to see that
the new Russia, internally and internationally,
could not exist with policies radically different
from those of the old Russia unless the other na-
tions changed at the same time.

The first move was to get rid of the counter-
revolutionary insurrections. Successively Yude-
nitch, Denikin, Kolchak, and Wrangel were ut-
terly defeated. The next move was to bring back
under the central authority of Moscow the outly-
ing provinces whose independence was being used
as a means of stealing Russia's natural wealth
and organizing counter-revolutionary movements.
The Soviet form of government was successfully
established in Ukrainia, the Caucasus states, in-
cluding Armenia, the central Asiatic emirates,
and throughout Siberia. This took several
years, but, with the exception of Poland, Bes-
sarabia, and the Baltic states, it was accomplished
before the end of 1922 and entailed the evacuation
of Siberia by the Japanese and of the Caucasus
by the British. The ill fated Archangel expedi-
tion was allowed to freeze itself out.

Along with this astoundingly successful policy
of reunifying Russia, vigorous diplomatic cam-
paigns were carried on, the first to bring within

the orbit of Russian influence the Asiatic neigh-

182

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

bors, alliance with whom was necessary to pre-
vent a recurrence of the effort to destroy the
empire ; and the second to reestablish peace with
European neighbors and secure recognition from
the larger powers, trade with whom was neces-
sary for the revival of Russian prosperity. The
two campaigns were carried on simultaneously,
and the Asiatic objectives were skilfully used to
bring about the European ones.

Soviet Russia has not yet succeeded in coming
to an understanding with China, because of the
continuance of civil war in that country. But
the policy of Moscow since the Washington Con-
ference leaves no room for doubt as to the com-
plete change from the attitude of 19 18, when
Russia gave up voluntarily all the rights and am-
bitions of the czarist regime. Now that the Rus-
sians are back in Vladivostok and have resumed
through service on the Transsiberian Railway,
they have once more taken over the military con-
trol of Mongolia and are beginning to insist on
their rights in Northern Manchuria. It sounds
like old times to read Comrade Joffe's answer to
the protest of Peking:

There is none who could prove or so much as sincerely
believe that Russia pursues any selfish or imperialistic
interests whatsoever in this Mongolian question. The
stationing of our troops there concerns Chinese interests
no less than Russian ; and while, in the name of my

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

people, I reject energetically the demand for their with-
drawal from Urga, the only reason is that I am totally
convinced that not only would this be impossible at
present from the point of view of Russian interests, but
that it would be impossible also from the point of view
of real Chinese interests, rightly understood, let alone
those of the good people of Mongolia.

No Czarist minister at his prime, no present-
day Curzon or Poincare could have done better!

When the Boshevists announced in the early
part of 1918 their intention of withdrawing from
countries where Russia had no business to be,
Persia was the nation to whom an amende honor-
able was most due. Against no people had Czar-
ist Russia sinned more than against the Persians.
In 1907 Petrograd had virtually partitioned
Persia with London, and by the secret treaty of
191 5, in return for Constantinople, the Czarist
ministers agreed to let Great Britain have the
middle zone, which was to be maintained as neu-
tral when the Russians occupied the north and the
British the south.

But Lenin and his associates soon discovered
that their renunciation of a sphere of influence
in Persia, just as their recognizing the independ-
ence of the Caucasus states, did not mean free-
dom for the natives. The Germans, and then
the British, occupied the Caucasus. When the

Russians withdrew from northern Persia, the

184

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

British accepted this as a sign of weakness and
not as the initiation of a new policy. British
troops overran northern Persia, attempted to in-
vade the Transcaspian province and used the
Persian port of Enzeli on the Caspian Sea as a
base of naval and military operations against
Moscow. Then, after having prevented the
Persian delegation at the Peace Conference from
getting a hearing, the British intimidated the
Teheran Government into signing an agreement
on August 9, 1919, placing Persia completely
in the power of Great Britain.

As soon as they had defeated the counter-revo-
lutionary movements, the Bolshevists forced the
British to evacuate the Caucasus and aided the
Persians to expel the British from northern
Persia. The treaty with the British had not been
ratified by the Persian Parliament. A new
treaty was concluded in 192 1, this time with Mos-
cow, which reestablished Persia as an independ-
ent nation, master of its own destinies.

British military weakness also enabled the So-
viet leaders to encourage Afghanistan to throw
off the veiled British protectorate that had ex-
isted for several decades. The Russo-Afghan
treaty signed at Moscow on October 16, 1920,
was a success the 'Czarist Government had never
been able to attain. After the collapse of the
Kolchak insurrection and the restoration of Rus-

185

EUROPE SINCE 1918

sian authority in Siberia the British Government
was compelled to recognize the independence of
both Persia and Afghanistan and to conclude
treaties with these two countries on terms as
liberal as those granted by Russia. Consequently
the Persians were able to turn again to the United
States in 1922 for a financial commission, and
the Afghans established legations at European
capitals and Washington.

Russia was freed of the constant menace of
counter-revolutionary movements originating in
Persia and Afghanistan. On the other hand, her
new diplomatic position at Teheran and Kabul
enabled her to bargain with Great Britain. In
return for the renewal of economic intercourse,
the Moscow Soviet promised the British to re-
frain from nationalist propaganda against them
in India and Mesopotamia.

This Anglo-Russian bargain shows how far
from their original ideals the Soviet leaders had
traveled. The rights of peoples to determine
their own destinies had been the slogan of Bol-
shevist propaganda abroad. It was to be the
irresistible weapon to strike down capitalistic im-
perialism in Asia. But Lenin, when he found
that Russia simply had to trade with England,
played the game of world politics in the old way.
When the British lifted the embargo against
trade with Russia, the Russians were ready to

186

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

stop the preaching, to the detriment of the British
Government, of their doctrines that were to
emancipate a world in slavery to capitalism !

The most signal — and cynical — success of the
Bolshevists in forsaking internationalism for na-
tionalism has been the triumphant reentry of
Russia as a factor in Near Eastern affairs. We
have seen elsewhere how the Entente Powers,
after ignoring Russia in drawing up the treaties
that were to make the new map of Europe, be-
lieved that it was in their power to settle the dev-
olution of the Ottoman Empire. Rid, as they
thought, of the embarrassment of Russian claims
to Constantinople and to a sphere of influence in
Asia Minor, they acted on the assumption that
the interests of three powers alone needed to be
considered when, at San Remo, they decided upon
the terms of the Treaty of Sevres. Even if they
had preserved a united front, it would have been
difficult to ignore Russia. With the divergence
of interests among them, the San Remo compro-
mise, leaving out Russia, was as absurd as it
was futile.

This was soon discovered. The Turkish Na-
tionalists at Angora naturally appealed to Mos-
cow for aid to prevent the dismemberment of
their country. A Russo-Turkish treaty was con-
cluded in the autumn of 1920, which was revised
and strengthened in 1921 and 1922. Artillery,

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

airplanes, motor-lorries, gasoline, timber, and
ammunition were given to the Angora Govern-
ment, which enabled Mustafa Kemal Pasha to
drive the French out of Cilicia and to check the
advance of the Greeks in Asia Minor. The Na-
tionalists were thus enabled to become much
stronger than the intrigues of France and Italy
had planned that they should become. Owing to
Russian support, the Turks at the Lausanne Con-
ference at the end of 1922 were defiant and re-
fused to accept a modification of the Treaty of
Sevres which would safeguard Entente economic
interests in the Ottoman Empire.

Foreign Minister Tchitcherin, who represented
Russia at Lausanne, was denied a seat at the
peace table. The Entente Powers went to the
point of declaring that the future of the Straits
was not Russia's business. This policy had un-
expected results. Tchitcherin retaliated against
the attempt to exclude Russia by encouraging the
Turks to refuse the modified terms and the suc-
cessive concessions of the Entente delegates.
Then he informed the Entente Powers that Rus-
sia's consent was essential if the new treaty was
to be any more successful than the Treaty of
'Sevres had been.

Russian influence over the Turks was main-
tained, however, at the price of giving up the one
idealistic phase, the one redeeming feature, in

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RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

Russia's traditional policy in the Near Eastern
question. In the nineteenth century Russia had
defended the Christians of Turkey and the Bal-
kans, most of them of her own faith, against
Mohammedan oppression, and had been instru-
mental in securing the liberation, against the
wishes of the other Powers, of millions of Chris-
tians from the Ottoman yoke. This glorious
tradition was sacrificed in the alliance of the Mos-
cow Soviet with the Angora Nationalists. Talk-
ing recently with a high-minded Russian, I de-
plored this. His answer was instructive.

"Your reproach amazes me," said my Russian
friend. "In the face of what has happened since
the World War, I do not see how you have the
audacity to make it. The Moscow Government
does not pretend to have any interest in Christi-
anity. You other nations not only profess to be
Christian, but you reproach us for the anti-
religious character of the Bolshevist movement.
But our relations with Angora are inspired by
the justifiable instinct of national self-preserva-
tion, and we do not pretend to be Christians any
longer. You have tumbled over yourselves to
placate the Turks, to make concessions to them of
every kind, and to get into their good graces.
You have condoned the Armenian and Greek
massacres, and you have abandoned to the mercy
of the Turks your fellow-Christians, who are

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

also your allies, and whom you encouraged to pro-
voke the Turks. You began by promising Chris-
tians emancipation, and you have ended by invit-
ing the Turks to join your League of Nations.
Your motive for all this — what is it ? Simply to
fill your pocketbooks."

With European countries and the United
States, Soviet Russia has not been so successful
as with Asiatic countries. It is true that in the
Paris treaties we struck at the principle of the
inviolability of private property, and that by our
consent to the actions of the French in the Ruhr
we have seemingly approved the Communist the-
ory that the property of individuals belongs to
the state. It is true that in the past we have re-
pudiated national obligations and that at the pres-
ent time there are international debts unpaid and
unfunded greater than those that Russia owes
abroad. Therefore, we might have forgiven
Russia for doing as we have done. But we can-
not forgive her for preaching subversive doc-
trines. A government can practise whatever it
pleases. But it must not preach that what it
practises is right ! This is the fundamental prin-
ciple of international relations that ostracizes So-
viet Russia. Other nations cannot be blamed
for taking this attitude. Good manners are the
sine qua non of harmonious intercourse. We are
right in insisting upon a radical change in Rus-

190

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

sia's manners before we take her back into our
good society. How the philosophy of form does
rule and regulate us !

The Bolshevists made no progress during six
years with the United States. The Wilson ad-
ministration declared that the Moscow Soviet did
not represent Russia and could not be recognized
in any way because its doctrines and practices
were incompatible with those of civilized nations.
Bolshevist emissaries were deported. The mat-
ter ended there. It has been easy for the United
States under the Harding administration to
maintain the same policy. We have taken a gen-
erous humanitarian interest in feeding the Rus-
sian people, but we do not feel impelled to have
anything to do with Lenin and his associates.
We can wait years longer, maintaining rigidly
the policy of non-intercourse, because we do not
have important economic and political interests
at stake.

With the Entente Powers the situation is dif-
ferent. They have been called upon, separately
and collectively, to decide their attitude toward
the Moscow Soviet. France, Italy, and Great
Britain, 'being in Europe and a part of Europe,
and Japan, being in Asia and a part of Asia, have
not been able to maintain the fiction that the
Moscow Soviet is not the Russian Government.
They know it is. Ostracizing Russia cuts off

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

their goods from vast markets. Ignoring Rus-
sia, as we have seen above, makes uncertain of
fulfilment, if not invalid, the results of all diplo-
matic negotiations among themselves and with
the neighbors of Russia.

The British, admirable realists in international
politics, were first to grasp the cutting-ofif-the-
nose-to-spite-the-face danger of keeping Russia
in Coventry. British trade was suffering, and
the Russians were in a position, which was daily
growing stronger, to stir things up unpleasantly
against the British in India and Mesopotamia. A
Soviet delegation was received in London, and
as soon as the British saw that Kolchak had fol-
lowed the fate of Yudenitch and Denikin they
signed a trade agreement and brought into court
a test case to convince the Bolshevists that what
they exported would not be confiscated for claims
against the former Government. The British be-
gan to trade with Russia, and British and Rus-
sians mutually promised to abstain from propa-
ganda against one another.

Italy and smaller countries soon followed suit.

France made the mistake of backing Baron

Wrangel, still one more will-o'-the-wisp, and the

question of the enormous debt of the Czarist

regime, most of it widely distributed among

French peasants, made it impossible for the

French Government to renew relations with Rus-

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RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

sia. On the other hand, France's persistence in
backing counter-revolutionary movements, her
support of Poland, her effort to control the Little
Entente, her commercial treaty with Finland, her
role at the Genoa Conference, and her treatment
of Germany combined to increase the bitterness
between the closely allied nations of pre-war days.
In the summer of 1922 France began to make
overtures to Moscow; but these did not go far.
The invasion of the Ruhr, following upon the
Lausanne Conference, widened the breach.

The first of the post-war conferences to which
Russia was invited was that of Genoa in the
spring of 1922. At the very beginning of the
conference, however, France insisted that Rus-
sia, as the price of political recognition, accept
conditions that no delegates, having the interest
either of their country or political party at heart,
could have accepted. The opening sessions of
the Genoa Conference were so arranged as to give
the Russian delegates the suspicion that the con-
ference was intending to discredit them. They
resented the effort to make them appear, as the
Germans had been made to appear at Versailles,
as criminals and debtors. The financial pro-
posals of the Entente Powers they believed would
reduce Russia to economic servitude, and they re-
fused to accept them.

The Russians at Genoa were confronted with

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

the same unilateral application of a principle as
had confronted the Germans at Versailles. They
were told that the return of Russia into the fam-
ily of nations was dependent upon the recogni-
tion of the pre-war debt of Russia, upon repay-
ment of the sums borrowed by the Russian Gov-
ernment from the Allies during the war, and
upon the settlement of claims of foreigners for
property nationalized by the Soviet. The Rus-
sians answered that they would be willing to do
this if the Entente Powers would recognize Rus-
sia's equal right to participate in all the pecuniary
and other advantages of their victory, which these
sums had been spent to obtain. As for the claims
of foreigners against the Soviet, Russia would
pay these if the Allies would pay for the confis-
cation of money and the damages done by the
anti-Soviet generals, Kolchak, Denikin, and
Wrangel, who had been armed by the Allies
against Russia. The Russian claims for dam-
ages were far greater than those presented by the
Entente Powers.

Soviet counter-claims were indignantly re-
jected. The Entente Powers had no idea of ad-
mitting reciprocity, and insisted that Russia
would have to pay. Her claims against the En-
tente Powers were thrown out of court.

For several months Russia had been negotiat-
ing a treaty with Germany, with whom there

194

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

were claims on both sides to be adjusted. Since
Germany had been compelled by the Treaty of
Versailles to renounce the Treaty of Brest-
Litovsk, there had been no new document to take
its place. Before Russians and Germans arrived
at Genoa, the treaty had not taken final form.
But when the representatives of the two nations
saw that the Entente Powers intended to settle
their affairs for them by decisions secretly taken
in pre-conference meetings from which they were
excluded, they withdrew to Rapallo, where the
treaty was signed. This disturbing news for the
Entente Powers was announced on Easter Sun-
day. The Russo-German treaty provided for
mutual waiving of war claims, with the stipula-
tion that Russia should make no agreement with
a third power except on similar terms, and for
the resumption of full diplomatic relations.

The Entente statesmen protested vigorously
against the conclusion of a direct agreement of
this character both to Dr. Rathenau and M.
Tchitcherin, asserting that it anticipated and
prejudiced the general principle of settlement
with Russia, in which Germany's interests were
the same as those of the other nations. The Ger-
mans were accused of bad faith and the Russians
of duplicity. Loudest in denunciation were Mr.
Lloyd George and M. Barthou. When Germans
and Russians both answered that the negotiations

i9S

EUROPE SINCE 1918

had begun long before the Genoa Conference, but
that anyway, even if they had not, the two dele-
gations, excluded from the secret conferences of
the preceding fortnight, had only followed the ex-
ample given them by the British and French dele-
gations, there was a wrathful outburst.

The assumption was that Great Britain and
France had the right to do what they denied to
Germany and Russia. Germany was a defeated
nation. Russia was an outlaw nation. They
should not forget their complete dependence upon
the Entente Powers. There was truth in this
contention in so far as Germany was concerned.
Germany was at the mercy of the Entente Powers
for the time being. But Russia was not at their
mercy, and the Russian delegates did not see why
any such illusion should be entertained by the
Entente statesmen. When they demanded reci-
procity in adjusting claims for damages and ob-
ligations contracted during the war, it did not
occur to them that they were "insolent," as Mr.
Lloyd George put it, or "impudent," as M.
Barthou said. The only positive result of the
Genoa conference was the Russo-German treaty.
Tchitcherin and his colleagues rejected the con-
ditions of the Entente Powers and left Genoa,
declaring that they would never sign any agree-
ment except on the basis of reciprocity in the full-
est sense of the word. They did not intend to

196

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

barter Russia's economic independence for politi-
cal recognition.

The year following the Genoa Conference was
one of rebuffs and disillusion for Russia in her
attempt to secure recognition from the Entente
Powers and the United States. Up to the Genoa
Conference it had seemed as if the Moscow So-
viet was going to win out in the fight for re-
entrance into the family and councils of the great
powers. Great Britain and Italy had modified
their original attitude; and after the conference
France appeared to be considering the negotiation
of a trade agreement. The French were greatly
exercised over the Russo-German treaty, and the
French press began to warn the Government that
it would be foolish to allow Germany and Great
Britain to secure a favored commercial position
in the country that had been so long and so in-
timately connected with France. From the very
fact of the large French investments, was the pol-
icy followed at Genoa a wise one? And could
France afford to stand by and make no effort
while Berlin established intimate relations with
Moscow? M. Herriot, senator and former
mayor of Lyons, made a visit to Moscow, which
was not unfavorably commented upon in news-
papers that had been most bitterly anti-Bolshe-
vist. Those Frenchmen who were interested in
the Near East kept insisting that France could

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

not afford to let Soviet Russia become too power-
ful at Angora any more than at Berlin.

The olive branch was withdrawn, however,
soon after the opening of the Lausanne Confer-
ence. French statesmen felt that Tchitcherin
was a potent factor for mischief with the Turk-
ish delegation, and should at no costs be allowed
to have any say in the conference. The encour-
agement given by Russia to Germany in the pas-
sive resistance in the Ruhr demonstrated the fu-
tility of the hope entertained for a few months
that a rapprochement with Russia might prove
politically and commercially advantageous to
France.

Great Britain and France stood together in de-
ciding to exclude Russia from active participation
in the Lausanne Conference with the approval of
the new government in Italy. The Fascisti had
always been anti-Bolshevist, and Mussolini re-
versed the policy of his predecessors. Tchitche-
rin was told that Russia would be allowed to sign
the convention concerning the Straits, to be em-
bodied in the new treaty with Turkey, but could
have no part in drafting the convention or in dis-
cussing other provisions of the treaty. Since
Russia was more interested in the Lausanne de-
cisions than any other great power, the policy of
refusing her active participation in making the

treaty, especially the clauses relating to the

198

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

Straits, angered the Russians. They became a
powerful factor in encouraging Ismet Pasha.
The conference broke up. The Entente Powers
were incensed, and did not invite Russia to send
a delegation when the conference met again in
April, 1923. Notwithstanding this the Soviet
minister at Rome was ordered to Lausanne,
where he was assassinated in a restaurant. This
tragedy led to a renewed declaration that what-
ever agreement was reached at Lausanne would
be considered null and void by Russia.

At the same time public opinion all over the
world was aroused because of the execution of
two high dignitaries of the Roman Catholic
Church in Russia, and the persecution of Ortho-
dox clergy, following demonstrations against re-
ligion in Petrograd and Moscow that were remi-
niscent of what had happened in Paris during the
French Revolution. Moscow became embroiled
also with Great Britain over fishing rights on
the Mourman coast and alleged infractions of the
agreement to refrain from nationalist propaganda
in Asia. The British Foreign Office sent an ulti-
matum, threatening to break off trade relations.
Tchitcherin answered, requesting a new confer-
ence to discuss moot questions.

In the last year of the World War the Bolshe-
vist movement failed to carry with it Finland, the
Baltic provinces, Poland, and Bessarabia. The

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

Ukraine was a battle-field for nearly two years.
In this the largest, wealthiest, and most populous
of the republics that proclaimed their separation
from the empire following the 1917 revolution,
the Bolshevists, from the beginning of their rule,
managed to keep a close connection with Mos-
cow. The fiction of separate national existence
was maintained, and Ukrainia had her own dele-
gations at peace conferences and in whatever
dealings Russia had with the outside world.
But, as in the Caucasus, the term "Federated
Soviet Republics" did not mean real independence.
Moscow came more and more to dominate as Pet-
rograd had done in Czarist days. This held true
also in Siberia as the Bolshevists gradually won
back for Russia the vast regions from Samara
to Vladivostok.

Throughout 191 9 Soviet Russia was at war
with Finns, Esthonians, Latvians, and Lithu-
anians. The Finns were in a fortunate geo-
graphical position, and had behind them a sepa-
rate national existence which made comparatively
easy the formation of their state. The principal
difficulty with the Soviets, once the Bolshevist
insurrection had failed in the interior of Finland,
was the fixing of the frontier. Conditions in the
other three Baltic provinces were complicated
because there were no historic frontiers, and
Lithuanians and Poles were both claiming the dis-

200

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

trict of Vilna, the majority of whose inhabitants
were neither Lithuanians nor Poles but White
Russians. Also, the Entente Powers tried to use
Esthonia and Latvia as bases for fomenting and
launching counter-revolutionary movements.
Russia would probably have succeeded in Bolshe-
vizing Esthonia and Latvia, and in winning the
support of Lithuania, had it not been for the hos-
tility of these Baltic races to Bolshevist economic
doctrines and for the failure of the Bolshevist
armies to subdue Poland. Moscow concluded
treaties with her four former Baltic provinces,
recognizing their independence, and concentrated
her attention upon Poland.

The one great military disaster of Soviet Rus-
sia has been the sudden change from victory to
defeat in the drive against Warsaw in the sum-
mer of 1920. Polish delegates had already ap-
peared at Minsk to conclude peace upon favorable
terms when the fortune of arms changed. The
Russian armies were routed, and Moscow
changed roles with Warsaw. The would-be dic-
tators of peace had to accept harsh terms. The
Treaty of Riga, signed on October 12, 1920, is
discussed elsewhere. It gave Poland a boundary
far east of the line proposed at the Paris Con-
ference, which the friends and allies of Poland
had so drawn as to include all the territory that
might be regarded, on the most liberal calcula-

201

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tions, as having "an indisputably Polish ethnic
majority." Poland exacted of Russia fifty-five
thousand square miles, inhabited by seven million
people, of whom only 4 per cent were Poles. In
addition to this loss of territory, the Russians
were required to reimburse the Poles with gold
for requisitions made during the war and to re-
turn to Poland historic treasures, archives, pic-
tures, and manuscripts that had been in Russian
state museums since 1772.

There was historic justice in these restitutions,
and the Bolshevists did not resist the demands.
But the terms of the Treaty of Riga incensed the
Russian intellectuals, who hate Poles worse than
Bolshevists. The defeat before Warsaw, far
from causing the Moscow Soviet to collapse, re-
sulted in rallying round Lenin, especially for the
army, elements whose support he had not before
been able to command. The territorial greed of
Poland, afterward demonstrated to the disad-
vantage of the Ukrainians by the incorporation
of Eastern Galicia, increased the hatred of the
Russians and contributed in large measure to the
new nationalism which has become so unexpected
a development in the Soviet regime,

Czechoslovakia, created by the Peace Confer-
ence without consulting Russia, has managed to
keep on good terms with her big Slav cousin.
The Czechoslovak Legion did great harm to the

202

RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

Bolshevists in Siberia, but, as it had been
launched before the birth of Czechoslovakia, the
Prague Government was not held responsible for
it. During- the Russian drive on Poland in 1920
Czechoslovakia, like Germany, declared her neu-
trality. The premier, Dr. Benes, like Premier
Nitti of Italy, believed that the Bolshevists could
not help being recognized as the party indisput-
ably in the saddle. Czechoslovak policy, there-
fore, dictated the wisdom and prudence of dc
facto relations with Russia; and after the Genoa
Conference Prague and Moscow exchanged trade
missions, with diplomatic immunity and the right
to issue passports.

After the collapse of Germany, Rumania had
renounced the Treaty of Bucharest and received
delegates in her Parliament, elected by a Bes-
sarabian assembly, which had declared the union
of this Russian province with the Rumanian
Kingdom. In March, 1920, the union was rec-
ognized by the Entente Powers without consulta-
tion with Russia. This was one of the most im-
portant decisions taken by the former allies of
Russia. For it was the first one by which they
arrogated to themselves the right to dispose of a
Russian province summarily. Moscow, of
course, declared the decision null and void, and
the status of Bessarabia has yet to be definitely
settled.

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

In this brief survey I have tried to show how
the question of Russian national unity has not
been subordinated to the Bolshevist regime but
has rather dominated it. The economic theories
of Bolshevism died of their own inherent im-
practicability. In view of the policies adopted
by the Entente Powers, the idealistic world policy
of the Bolshevists had to give way to aggressive
nationalism. Russia is becoming again a capital-
istic country. She has strong reasons for insist-
ing upon a revision of the peace settlements, and
she is slowly building up her army and her inter-
national affiliations with the intention of demand-
ing a new deal, in which her interests as a great
power will be considered as equal to those of the
other great powers, not as a matter of right or
logic, but because her force will once more match
the force of other great powers.

204

CHAPTER XI
THE NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

WITHOUT laying stress upon the influ-
ence of the Entente promises to free and
defend small nations, none can under-
stand the situation that has arisen since the ar-
mistices in the territories of the former Haps-
burg, Romanoff, and Ottoman Empires. These
were the alternatives before the Paris peace-
makers : treating all subject nationalities alike,
in a spirit of impartial justice, with the idea of
establishing a tolerable new world order ; or blow-
ing hot or cold upon the aspirations and claims of
subject nationalities, with the aim of advancing
the particular selfish interests of the strongest
members of the conference.

The inability of President Wilson to resist the
pressure brought to bear upon him by his Euro-
pean colleagues made the latter choice inevitable.
Had it been possible for Great Britain, France,
and Italy to agree upon a common policy by mu-
tual sacrifices and compromises and a delimitation
of spheres of influence, they could have played
favorites among the small nations and emanci-

205

EUROPE SINCE 1918

pated races, and played them to win. The po-
litical organisms would have endured as Entente
statesmen created them, and the frontiers as En-
tente statesmen drew them. But because those
whose combined forces alone could have estab-
lished peace have followed divergent and conflict-
ing policies and do not play the same favorites,
not a single new frontier line in central and east-
ern Europe and in western Asia is as yet definitely
settled.

The first examples of independent action, in de-
fiance of the treaties and the agreement to act
together, was the seizure of Fiume by the Italian
irregulars soon after the Treaty of St. -Germain
was signed. Gabriel e d'Annunzio demonstrated
how easy it was to resist both Supreme Council
and League. Then General Gouraud, officially
responsible to France, violated spirit and letter
of Article XXII of the Covenant by seizing Da-
mascus. The unwillingness of members of the
Council of the League to abide by the Covenant
led to other breaches of good faith and disturb-
ances of the precarious peace. For lawlessness
breeds lawlessness. How can the great powers
expect smaller states to respect principles of in-
ternational equity which they themselves ignore?
Refusing to recognize the authority of the
League and the binding character of an armistice
entered into by his own government, the Polish

206

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

General Zeligowski invaded Lithuania in Octo-
ber, 1920, took possession of the capital, Vilna,
and gave battle merrily to the Lithuanians. Be-
cause he knew that he had Poland and France
behind him, Zeligowski had no fear of being
called to account. The Poles did the same thing
in Upper Silesia a year and a half later. The
Lithuanians in January, 1923, made a coup d'etat
in Memel, against which the Poles cried loud and
long.

The Zeligowski escapade accelerated the whirl
of the international whirlpool more than those of
d'Annunzio and Gouraud. For this refractory
general mixed things up and discredited the
League in the most dangerous spot in Europe.
Differences between Jugoslavs and Italians, and
between Arabs and French, did not threaten so
seriously the general peace as events in the bor-
derland of Germany, Russia, and Poland. The
support Poland gave to Zeligowski — or, at least,
her failure to suppress him, as Italy finally did
d'Annunzio — jeopardized the existence of Poland.
For among the border states of the Romanoff
and Hohenzollern Empires it is either live and
let live or repartition. Unless one believes that
the German and Russian races have been crushed
into impotence, Occidental Europe will play a los-
ing game in establishing Poland as the lone sen-
tinel, at the expense of her neighbors, between

207

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Germany and Russia. In debating the perma-
nent success of France's occupation of the Ruhr,
Russia is the unknown factor. And whether
Russia will or can help Germany depends fully as
much upon the new Baltic republics as upon
Poland.

Finland had a good start over her less fortu-
nately situated sister republics. During the war
she was not a battle-ground, and when the Petro-
grad revolution precipitated the collapse of the
Russian Empire the Finns were able to proclaim
and maintain their independence. They were off
in a corner by themselves and not on the path to
the place where the Bolshevists wanted to go.
No other state laid claim to any portion of their
territory other than the Aaland Islands. They
were able to harp back to the Treaty of Vienna,
which had stipulated the preservation of the in-
tegrity and autonomy of the Duchy of Finland,
and had sanctioned only a personal union with
the Russian Empire. The Czar was to be Duke
of Finland. The Finns argued with reason that
the disappearance of the Czar annulled ipso facto
the union with the Russian Empire. This paved
the way to a speedy recognition of the independ-
ence of Finland by the Entente Powers and neu-
trals, and the admission of Finland to the League
of Nations.

The successive revolutionary Governments in

208

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

Russia made no objection to the secession of Fin-
land from the empire, but the compelling motive
of speedy Entente recognition was the fact that
Germany recognized Finland and had a powerful
propaganda there. Before the revolution the En-
tente Powers had been bitterly hostile to Polish
and Finnish aspirations, and this fact won Fin-
nish sympathy for Germany. Unlike Poland,
Finland had no terre irredente to claim from the
Central Empires, and she therefore saw in the
victory of the Central Empires her chance of
breaking away from Russia. After the revolu-
tion, the Entente Powers conveniently forgot the
pro-Germanism of Finland. Being able to rec-
ognize Finland without offending Russia, they
promptly did so, and began to intrigue to induce
the Finns to attack the Bolshevists.

Prussian influence had been strong in the Bal-
tic countries north of the frontier of 1795 ever
since the Middle Ages. Memel and Libau and
Riga were German-built cities. Almost to Pet-
rograd a nobility of Germanic origin constituted
the land-owning class along the coast, and Ger-
man merchants abounded in the ports. The Bal-
tic barons fell in readily with the extension of
Russian sovereignty to the Baltic Sea in Esthonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania, and became loyal servitors
of the Russian Government and co-oppressors of
the subject races. As readily, when the Russian

209

EUROPE SINCE 1918

armies were beaten in the World War, the Baltic
barons welcomed their invading kinsmen and
worked for the King of Prussia. The Russian
revolution did not give the other Baltic races the
opportunity it gave the Finns. The Lithuanians
were under German military domination. The
Latvians were in the field of military operations
until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed.
The Esthonians soon had to cope with the Bol-
shevist movement, of which Reval, their capital,
became a center.

At the end of 1917, Lithuania, like Poland, was
offered independence by the Austro-Germans in
exchange for a political alliance, economic ad-
vantages, and military cooperation against the
Entente. Intrigue and intimidation failed. The
Lithuanians not only resisted with success the
pressure of their conquerors, who tried to dis-
guise themselves as liberators, but held a national
council at Vilna on February 16, 1918, which pro-
claimed the independence of Lithuania, declared
against special favors either to the conqueror or
to the former master, and set up a provisional
Government. Kaiser Wilhelm first, and the
King of Saxony later, tried to beguile the Lithu-
anians into forming an alliance with Germany.
Is it conceivable that the Lithuanian leaders,
who defied Germany in her hour of triumph and

210

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

when their country was held by a German army,
have been in connivance with defeated Germany?

Real liberation and the hope of statehood came
to the Baltic Sea republics only after the defeat
of Germany. At Vilna for Lithuania and at
Riga for Latvia independence was formally pro-
claimed and governments set up before the Ger-
mans withdrew. The Esthonians at Reval were
already under a regularly constituted independent
government. There was no more reason to
doubt the genuineness, permanence, and legiti-
macy of these national movements than in any
other part of Europe. The Baltic Sea republics,
ethnographically and historically, had as much
right to expect from the victory of the Entente
the revival of their nationhood as Poland and
Bohemia.

Before the conference met at Paris, the powers
of the victorious alliance entered into diplomatic
relations with the Baltic Sea republics. They
received accredited military missions, and their
Governments had no intimation that they would
be treated differently from Poland. In fact, they
were assured that formal recognition of their in-
dependence and seats at the Peace Conference
were withheld only because it was necessary not
to discourage or discredit the anti-Bolshevist gen-
erals to whom the Entente was giving military

EUROPE SINCE 1918

aid to crush Lenin.1 As they felt that their ex-
istence depended upon the overthrow of the Mos-
cow Soviet, or at least upon keeping Soviet propa-
ganda away from their own countries, the Baltic
Sea republics were content with informal pledges.
They realized the delicacy of the situation and
kept themselves in the background at Paris. On
the other hand, their cooperation alone made
practicable the military plans of the Entente
against the Bolshevists. They allowed their ter-
ritory to be used as a base of operations against
Petrograd and Moscow; they received military
supplies from the Entente Powers; and they were
guided by the advice of the military missions in
the projected campaigns against Petrograd and
Moscow.

The Baltic Sea republics needed food and sup-
plies and money. Ravaged and plundered during
five years by Russians and Germans alike, they
were beggars who could not choose their friends.

1 The most bitter of Russian reactionaries were jealous of the
unity of Russia. General Yudenitch, for instance, could never
be induced to recognize the independence of Esthonia, even
though he needed its military aid when he was using Esthonian
territory as a base for operations against Petrograd. General
Denikin sacrificed a chance to overthrow the Moscow Soviet in
order to fight separatism in the Caucasus and the Ukraine.
Admiral Kolchak could not be persuaded to use the bait of
Siberian independence to help along his cause. In 1919 the
Entente_ Powers and the United States felt they could not risk
dampening the ardor of the Russian reactionaries by revealing
their eventual policy. This is the explanation for the delay in
answering Rumania's pleas concerning Bessarabia.

212

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

Loyalty and decency did not seem to abide in
Entente diplomacy any more than in that of the
Germans. But the Baltic states could not break
with us. As long as there was hope of killing
Sovietism, they were ready to work with us.
The complete disasters that attended the anti-
Bolshevist movements opened the eyes of the Bal-
tic Sea republics. Yudenitch, the Archangel re-
public, Kolchak, and Denikin had been induced by
Entente military missions to attack Lenin. But
each in succession had been left in the lurch to
shift for himself when the fortunes of war
changed. We were merely rooters on the side-
lines. The withdrawal from Archangel was the
strongest possible argument against an invasion
of Russia. The plan of using the Baltic states
for pulling Entente chestnuts out of the fire had
to be abandoned. The military missions limited
their political efforts to preventing the Baltic re-
publics from signing peace.

The Kolchak debacle and the abandonment of
the Archangel front by the Entente armies com-
pelled Esthonia to treat with the Bolshevists. A
glance at the map will convince any fair-minded
man that the Esthonians had no other choice. It
was peace or extinction. The Entente missions
strenuously objected to the negotiations, but they
failed to advance the only argument that would
have counted, a definite pledge of military aid to

213

EUROPE SINCE 1918

the amount of two hundred thousand Entente
troops to be kept in the country as long as the
Esthonian Government had reason to fear a Bol-
shevist invasion.

The Peace of Dorpat, signed on January 21,
1920, was not evidence of Esthonian perfidy or
pro-Bolshevist leanings. It was evidence of the
complete military impotence of the Entente and
the United States and of the failure of our block-
ade to destroy Sovietism in Russia. If the Es-
thonians, face to face with the Red armies, had
refused to make peace with Lenin, relying on the
"moral support" of the League of Nations, what
does our common sense tell us would have hap-
pened to Esthonia? Esthonia was bitterly re-
proached for having signed the Peace of Dorpat
by the very journals and men who, seven months
later, gave Poland, in a similar plight, urgent
counsels to do what they had denounced Esthonia
for doing.

There is no word of condemnation for Poland
because she signed the Peace of Riga in October,
1920. In fact, she was officially advised to make
peace with Lenin. But abandoning the fight and
establishing official relations with Moscow were
used against the Baltic Sea republics as reasons
for considering them pro-Bolshevist and for with-
holding recognition of their independence. Lat-
via and Lithuania had to follow the lead of Es-

214

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

thonia and Finland, and anticipated the Russo-
Polish treaty by a few months. The treaties have
now been published. They contain no provisions
more advantageous to the Bolshevists than those
of the Russo-Polish Treaty of Riga.

The British worked as strenuously as their al-
lies to prevent Lenin from getting the Esthonians
to make peace; but, once the treaty was signed,
they accepted the situation and sought to make
the best of it. Not being under the spell of the
quixotism that seems to inspire our State Depart-
ment in its foreign policy, and having no valid
reason, as the French had, to maintain the integ-
rity of Russia and refuse to deal with Bolshevism
until money owed by the old regime was paid or
acknowledged as a legitimate obligation, the Brit-
ish recognized the independence of the Baltic Sea
republics and entered into diplomatic relations
with them.

Italy, impatient for some solution, no matter
what, of the Russian imbroglio, followed Great
Britain's lead. France did not dare to stand out
against de facto recognition. To abstain from
diplomatic intercourse with the Baltic Sea repub-
lics would have been to renounce the economic ex-
ploitation of these countries in favor of the Brit-
ish. So the Baltic representatives were received
at the Quai d'Orsay, and French diplomats were
then able to work at Libau and Riga and Reval to

215

EUROPE SINCE 1918

prevent a British trade and banking monopoly in
Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, and to throw
a monkey-wrench into the works of the British
naval machine which aimed at the supremacy of
the Baltic Sea.

All this did not come about in a minute. The
changed attitude toward the new political status
quo in the eastern Baltic and toward the question
of trading with Russia is due to the remorseless
working of economic laws which prove in the
long run more powerful than the combinazione of
statesmen. Politics naturally yields to economics,
for trade is the raison d'etre of the foreign policy
of nations. Prejudices die hard. The influences
working against the stability of the Baltic Sea
republics at London and Paris are still strong.
French opposition among anti-Bolshevists, Rus-
sian bondholders, and amis de la Pologne is still
active. A reactionary group in Great Britain is
ready to sacrifice the Lithuanians, Latvians, and
Esthonians to whatever Russian Government may
be able to stamp out Bolshevism and displace
Lenin and his associates. The Russians who
pulled the strings for the Entente in the various
anti-Bolshevist fiascos still watch the development
of the Baltic situation and refuse to admit any
diminution of "integral Russia." Polish propa-
ganda ridicules the right of the Baltic races to
separate existence.

216

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

Under these conditions, the observer of Euro-
pean international politics who believes in a square
deal for everybody deplored the Colby note of
August 10, 1920. None questioned the good
faith of Mr. Colby and his associates in their
anxiety to convince the Russian people of our de-
tachment and good-will and to try to reconcile
implacable opposition to Bolshevism with affection
for Russia. The State Department undoubtedly
meant well and thought it was making a masterly
move; but one does not need to go further than
the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" to convince one-
self, by glancing over the admirable summaries
of historical facts from the best sources, of Mr.
Colby's unfairness and inconsistency in announc-
ing in the same document that the policy of the
United States was to preserve at all costs "Rus-
sian integrity" and at the same time to maintain
Poland's territorial integrity by "the employment
of all available means."

After studying the formation of the two politi-
cal organisms of 19 14, Austria-Hungary and
Russia, Mr. Wilson's note of September 7, 1918,
to the Austro-Hungarian Government and our
subsequent American policy appear a curious —
and typically Anglo-Saxon — mixture of idealism
and expediency. Did not the Romanoffs as much
as the Hapsburgs build their empires upon the
ruins of small races of alien blood and institu-

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tions and religion? If the moral sense of the
world demands the liberation and restoration to
nationhood of races in slavery to Austrians and
Hungarians, how could Mr. Colby declare that the
policy of our Government stands for the return
to slavery of nations whose life was extinguished
by the Russians ? We asked the blessing of God
upon our arms to assure us the victory because
we were fighting for humanity. In our prayers
we put no limit on our philanthropy.

On July 4, 1918, when President Wilson re-
ceived the representatives of subject races at
Mount Vernon, he made a solemn pledge in the
name of the American people to all subject races.
A Lithuanian stood with the others before Wash-
ington's tomb. Neither in that speech nor in any
other did Wilson say, "You understand, of course,
that the victorious Allies mean to free and restore
only the subject races whose freedom and restora-
tion will be at the expense of our enemies and to
their confusion." Had he said this, it would
have been a manly confession — to avoid false
hopes and false pretenses — of what was after-
ward evident at the Peace Conference, that the
yearning for humanity was a sham and the proc-
lamation of the doctrine of self-determination a
falsehood. The moral issue was simply buncombe
to make people feel good and to arouse them
against the Germans. Because races were con-

218

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

quered by the Romanoffs, have they less right to
freedom than if they were conquered by the Haps-
burgs and Hohenzollerns ?

When we read carefully the Colby note, which
was meant to justify the refusal of the State De-
partment to follow the example of our associates
in recognizing and dealing with and helping the
Baltic Sea republics, we challenge its logic as well
a& its misrepresentation of the American idealism
expressed by President Wilson during the war.
Poland and Finland were portions of "integral
Russia"; so was Russian Armenia; so was Bes-
sarabia. Without consulting Russia, we recog-
nized the independence of Poland, Finland, and
Armenia, and agreed to the inclusion of Bessa-
rabia in Rumania.

The State Department expert will respond that
Poland and Finland had a special status under the
Treaty of Vienna. Why go back in regard to
Russia only to the Treaty of Vienna? In mak-
ing the Treaties of Versailles and St.-Germain
we canceled the Treaty of Vienna. We ignored
this treaty and all other treaties in dealing with
subject races of Austria-Hungary and Germany.
The attempt to justify partiality of treatment be-
tween Poland and the Baltic Sea republics on the
ground of the Treaty of Vienna fails even if we
did accept the Treaty of Vienna as the law and

the prophets. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania

219

EUROPE SINCE 1918

enjoyed an individual status in the Russian Em-
pire by virtue of arrangements made before the
Napoleonic period and not infringed upon until
1830. The charter of Lithuania was not finally
abrogated until 1848, and the title of Grand Duke
of Lithuania was assumed by the Russian Czar
on a parity with that of King of Poland and
Grand Duke of Finland at coronations. This
acknowledgment of the separate identity of Lithu-
ania in the empire was never given up. The late
Nicholas was crowned Grand Duke of Lithuania.

From a historical point of view the American
State Department had no ground to stand upon in
regarding Lithuania as a Russian province and
at the same time holding that Poland is an inde-
pendent kingdom. The relations of the two coun-
tries toward the Russian Empire are strikingly
alike. Both lost their independence through the
partitions of the eighteenth century, after having
been for centuries great and flourishing empires.
Both suffered horribly from czardom during the
nineteenth century. Both were battle-grounds
during the late war.

Commander Gade, an American reserve naval
officer who represented us in the Baltic provinces,
justified the non-recognition policy on practical
economic grounds. He maintained that these
countries could not exist independently, and ought
not be to encouraged in their aspirations for

220

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

nationhood, because Russia needs them as an eco-
nomic outlet to the sea, while much of their pros-
perity must come from transit trade. Com-
mander Gade advanced this point of view earnestly
and plausibly. It appealed to American common
sense, which believed that in union there is
strength.

But we forget the Treaties of Versailles and
St.-Germain. One may have his own opinion
about the advisability of the policy of emiettement
(breaking in pieces) of political organisms that
represented the economic evolution of past cen-
turies. We are committed, however, to just that
policy. It is too late to question it. I have never
been an unreasoning and sentimental pleader for
the doctrine of self-determination, but I have
maintained, as a student of nationalist movements,
that the effort to limit the application of self-deter-
mination to races whose liberation helps the fan-
cied interests of a few great powers is disastrous
and makes impossible the establishment of peace.

Political expediency is never more than a tem-
porary makeshift. Old problems are solved only
by creating new ones. It stands to reason that
we cannot in one breath lop off frontier provinces
from Germany on the gound of the alien charac-
ter of their inhabitants and destroy the Hapsburg
Empire on the ground of the right of its various
elements to an independent existence, and in the

221

EUROPE SINCE 1918

next breath tell other, and neighboring, subject
races that they have no future outside of the
Romanoff Empire. Lithuania has a better
economic raison d'etre than Poland and Czecho-
slovakia. Lithuania and the other Baltic Sea re-
publics have precedents that refute the argumenta-
tion of Gade and our State Department, not only
in regard to their right and ability to exist inde-
pendently of Russia, but also independently of one
another.

If the reader will take the map of Europe,,
look at the location of the German Empire, follow
its river-courses in relation to Belgium and Hol-
land, and then compare the similar situation of
Russia in relation to Lithuania, Latvia, and Es-
thonia, he will readily see how the Gade position,
which our State Department foolishly adopted,
resembled the position of German economists
toward Belgium. The fact of standing between
a great empire and the sea is no reason to deny the
right of a people to nationhood. The Dutch and
a part of the Belgians are very much closer to the
Germans racially than the Lithuanians and Lat-
vians are to the Russians and Poles. Had we
not definitely scotched the access-to-the-sea argu-
ment for a big fellow's crushing the life out of a
little fellow? It is disconcerting to see it crop
up in our own country in official circles. The

other two parts of the Gade economic argument

222

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

are also refuted by Belgium and Holland. These
countries have existed economically, flourished,
and been able to defend themselves against Ger-
many, England, and France. And they have ex-
isted now for nearly a hundred years as separate
entities. Why should not Baltic Sea states get
along as North Sea states? The Baltic Sea al-
ready has little states less extensive in territory
and some of them less populous than the new
Baltic Sea republics.

But Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, by asking
for the recognition of their independence, did not
close the door upon the possibility of a Russian
federation among themselves. In this time of
upset and confusion they asked simply for a free
hand to look out for their own interests. As
Russian provinces, with no separate international
status, they could resist neither Bolshevists nor
Russian reactionaries. They would be in the
plight of the rest of Russia now, and to-morrow,
when the reaction comes, they would have to sub-
mit to a return to the old intolerable conditions,
with alien landowners and alien office-holders
grinding the life out of them.

The Baltic Sea republics may develop into vig-
orous independent States, or they may return to
membership in the political organism of a new
and regenerated Russia ; but in the meantime they
have to live, and when the moment for the re-

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

constitution of integral Russia comes these
subject races will know by experience whether
independence is possible or preferable from an
economic point of view, and will be able to lay
down political and social stipulations if they feel
that it is wisest to go back to Russia.

We have discussed at length the attitude of the
United States toward the plea of the Baltic Sea
republics for recognition to illustrate the difficul-
ties our country encounters in taking sides in ques-
tions that -concern Europe. The European powers
back or oppose the aspirations of small states and
peoples in accordance with their own well defined
national interests. The United States has no such
interests. The policies we adopt upon misappre-
hension or misinformation, as in the case of the
Baltic Sea republics, do us no good, and do others
much harm. In the end they do us harm. Hav-
ing no vital interests to guide us, we should abstain
from European questions or let ourselves be con-
trolled by definite principles which we apply alike
in all cases.1

Since 1 92 1 the progress of the Baltic Sea re-
publics has been gratifying. They have proved
their ability to live alone. Lithuania alone has
been in hot water because she has been unable to

1 De facto recognition was eventually given to the Baltic re-
publics, and their unofficial missions at Washington were changed
to legations. But only Finland is as yet regarded by our State
Department as on a footing with sovereign states.

224

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

get a square deal in her dispute with Poland over
Vilna. The attitude of the League of Nations
toward Lithuania has been disheartening, and has
proved that the Council of the League is not an
impartial body, dispensing justice among nations
for the common good of all, but a group of states-
men furthering special interests. The dispute
between Lithuania, the victim, and Poland, the
aggressor, has not been handled on its merits, but
has been used as one of a number of pawns in the
game of compromise between France and Great
Britain.

The facts of the case are these: When the
League of Nations took over the adjudication of
the frontier between Poland and Lithuania, both
countries agreed to an armistice, and the line be-
tween the opposing armies was drawn by the
League of Nations. Within a month after this
agreement was signed, the Poles violated the
armistice, made a surprise attack, and in a few
days not only occupied the disputed frontier terri-
tory but went a long distance beyond and seized
Vilna, the capital of Lithuania.

The methodical preparation for this move had
long been observed by the Lithuanians, but when
Mr. Veldemar pointed out to the Council of the
League that Poland was preparing to anticipate
by violence the award, he was assured that this
would not be allowed. After the coup, the Lithu-

225

EUROPE SINCE 1918

anian Government received no satisfaction from
the Council. The Polish Government denied re-
sponsibility for Zeligowski and asserted that his
army was composed of men from the disputed
territory. The League of Nations finally agreed
to settle the matter by means of a plebiscite, but
included in the plebiscite the district of Vilna.
To guarantee a fair vote, the plebiscite area was
to be occupied by an international body of troops.

Russia intervened in the question. This was to
be expected. Russia's rights and interests in the
relations between Poland and Lithuania are far
more important than those of any state in the
League of Nations. We might say, in fact, that
it was folly on the part of the League of Nations
to believe that territorial matters of this sort could
be settled without consulting Russia. Russia
has treaties of peace with both Poland and Lithu-
ania. Her Government has been virtually at war
with the Governments controlling the League of
Nations. These Governments did all in their
power for several years to destroy the present
Russian Government. Russia, therefore, declared
that the League of Nations had no business to
interfere in matters that concern Russia and her
neighbors, with whom she is at peace. The terms
of the treaties between Russia and Poland and
Lithuania have nothing to do with the League of
Nations, and their interpretation and execution

226

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

is a matter of direct negotiation between Russia
and her neighbors.

Consequently Russia served notice on Poland
that the presence of the Zeligowski troops in Lith-
uania, beyond the lines agreed upon in a Treaty
of Riga, was a violation of that treaty, and that
Poland must withdraw her troops. At the same
time the Russian Government warned Lithuania
that the presence of troops of the League of Na-
tions would not be tolerated. Russia pointed out
that the experiences of the last few years had
given her reason to believe that the presence of
foreign troops at Vilna could not but be a menace
to her security.

The Entente Powers and the United States
were afraid to let the League of Nations take a
step full of embarrassment for them. If Lithu-
ania is a province of Russia, the de facto Russian
Government is justified in intervening to prevent
Poland, with or without the help of the League
of Nations, from alienating territory from the
Russian Empire. Such action would be in ac-
cordance with the Colby note of August 10, 1920;
for in this case Lenin would be acting not as a
Bolshevist but as a patriotic Russian, to defeat a
scheme of Poland, with foreign aid, to grab more
Russian territory. On the other hand, if Lithu-
ania were independent, why should she not receive
full recognition of the new status? The Soviet

227

EUROPE SINCE 1918

was equally unwilling to have the question come
to a show-down, because of its determination not
to become involved in a new war.

So Poland and Lithuania agreed to negotiate
directly, with M. Hymans of Belgium as medi-
ator. When the representatives of the two coun-
tries met at Brussels, M. Hymans, supposedly
acting for the League of Nations but in reality
following a course dictated by the desire to help
Belgium and France reach an understanding in
regard to the German reparations question, pro-
posed that Lithuania be divided into two cantons,
and the whole country put under a joint council
for foreign affairs including Lithuanian and Po-
lish members. In addition, Lithuania was to
pool her army with that of Poland. It was really
a proposal for the extinction of Lithuanian inde-
pendence and was refused in May, 1921. For
two years the League of Nations has tried to
impose upon Lithuania a boundary which accepts
as a fait accompli the violation of the armistice
and the seizure of Vilna by Zeligowski.

After the French and Belgians invaded the
Ruhr in January, 1923, the Lithuanians decided
that the time had come to settle the Memel ques-
tion. The Port of Memel, with a strip of terri-
tory along the Niemen River, was detached from
Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, with the
intention of making it a port for Lithuania as

228

NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

Danzig was made a port for Poland. The terri-
tory was ceded to the Allied and Associated
Powers, and was taken over by the French. The
award to Lithuania was not made, and it was sus-
pected by the Lithuanians that France intended
to manceuver, after the failure of the Hymans
proposition, to give Memel to Poland. In this
way East Prussia would be cut off from Russia.
Taking a leaf from Zeligowski's book in January,
1923, Lithuanian "irregulars" occupied Memel,
disarmed the French garrison, and proclaimed the
union of Memel with Lithuania. Confronted
with a deadly parallel, the Entente Powers did
not have the face to tell the Lithuanians that they
could not act toward Memel as the Poles had
acted toward Vilna. A month after the Lithua-
nians had seized Memel, they were confirmed in
their possession of it by the Council of Ambassa-
dors at Paris.

This is only one of many illustrations of the
importance of having force at your disposal if
you hope to survive in post-bellum Europe. Since
the Treaty of Versailles, from the Baltic to the
Bosphorus, all decisions, all changes, have been
made by and in favor of the people possessing
arms and using them.

Despite the political confusion of the last six
years, the new Baltic Republics have succeeded
remarkably well in establishing their claim to

229

EUROPE SINCE 1918

recognition as independent states on a permanent
footing. What may happen when Germany and
Russia again become powerful none can predict.
It is hardly possible, however, that any of these
states will return to Russia unless German policy
demands this solution of the Baltic question, which
is most unlikely. Because of their higher level
of civilization and their literacy, the Baltic peo-
ples survived Russianization in the old Romanoff
Empire. Since the World War Finland has been
able to make arrangements to refund her debt to
the United States, and the three other countries
have all been able to balance their budgets. Fi-
nancially and in healthy trade prospects the Bal-
tic Republics are better off than any of the new
states that have come into being as a result of
the World War, with the possible exception of
Czechoslovakia.

230

CHAPTER XII
THE RESURRECTION OF POLAND

WHEN the European war raised the ques-
tion of subject nationalities, Entente
propagandists ignored the oppression
and the aspiration to independence of other peo-
ples save those under the yoke of enemy countries.
The censorship, rigorously enforced in France,
forbade discussion of the hopes of the Poles or
even allusion to them. The Poles had no friends
in Entente official circles, and Americans regarded
the resurrection of Poland as a dream. The right
of the Poles to recreate their political unity and
national life could not be encouraged so long as
Russia was a member of the Entente. Self-
determination was a war weapon and not an hon-
est profession of faith in an ideal. When every
nerve was strained to bring Germany to her knees,
it would have been folly to discuss matters tending
to undermine the solidarity of the Entente coali-
tion. Flad the revolution not occurred, had Rus-
sia remained in the war to the day of victory, the
Poles would have had as little attention at the
Peace Conference as Ireland and Egypt received.

231

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The resurrection of Poland was the result, not
of German encouragement of Polish aspirations,
and not of the victory of the Entente Powers, but
of the Russian revolution. The -consideration
shown the Poles at the Peace Conference and
since cannot be explained by the affection of the
French for the Poles. Throughout the nineteenth
century, the Poles were sacrificed to the exigen-
cies of international politics, and none of the great
powers was a worse offender than France. Three
times, in 1814, in 1830, and in 1863, the Poles
had been left in the lurch by the French, after
having been encouraged to defy Russia ; and the
Third Republic pursued the policy of sacrificing
the Poles to the Russian alliance. This situation
changed only when France became an enemy of
Russia. Then Polish aspirations were encour-
aged. When Russia deserted the Entente, Fran'ce
decided that Poland must be resurrected to take
the place of Russia in the alliance against Ger-
many. That Poland might be a strong ally,
France backed the Poles to the limit in their terri-
torial demands, and has succeeded in making the
new Poland a nation of thirty millions, larger
by far than any of the other states emerging
aggrandized or with recovered independence from
the World War.

When the Russian revolution had made en-
couragement of the hopes of the Poles a diplomatic

232

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

possibility for the Entente, I heard M. Roman
Dmowski, at the Comite National d' Etudes in the
Cour de Cassation, set forth the aspirations of
Poland. M. Dmowski spoke as if two racial
units alone, Russians and Poles, faced each other
from the Baltic to the Black Sea. He limited the
problem of the future of the border-lands of Rus-
sia and the Central Empires to the recognition of
Poland's independence and the backing of Polish
claims at the Peace Conference. He did not men-
tion the Lithuanians and the Ukrainians. This
was the beginning of a policy that has guided the
Polish attitude toward the eastern frontiers of
their state. The Poles insisted in the west on the
inclusion of every district inhabited by Poles. In
the east they regarded the ethnographical argu-
ment as of no importance.

From the moment they had a hearing the Poles
began to claim all the Russian border-lands, in-
cluding Lithuania, as part of historic Poland.
Ukrainians and Lithuanians, however, asserted
that they, too, had ruled over these lands at one
time or another. The Lithuanians denied ever
having been conquered by the Poles or having
formed more than a personal union with the Polish
state, and declared that they were victims of the
partitions of the eighteenth century, not as a part
of Poland, but as an independent state. The his-
toric argument applied to the Russian border-

233

EUROPE SINCE 1918

lands is like that used in the Balkan states in rival
claims to Macedonia. Each in turn had at one
time been the upper dog and had owned the dis-
puted territories.

The ungenerous attitude of the Poles toward
their neighbors has been one of the most dis-
heartening phenomena of the World War's after-
math. One would think that they, having suf-
fered so much at the hands of their masters, would
instinctively refrain from playing the detested
role themselves. But as soon as they had a chance
they demonstrated that they had learned only too
well how to employ the brutal methods of their
own conquerors. As Russians and Germans had
acted toward Poles, so Poles began to act toward
Lithuanians and Ukrainians. We remember
how the Poles cried out against the refined cruelty
and the diabolical ingenuity of the colonization
schemes of their Prussian masters. The laws
under which they sufifered in Posnania have been
the inspiration of laws adopted by the Polish Diet
to be applied against embarrassing majorities in
the border districts of the new Poland.

Ever since the Poles found that they were going
to receive back their freedom, their territorial
appetite has known no bounds, and it has increased
with eating. Each successive triumph in getting
a strip of territory from a neighbor has been
followed by new demands. A study of the al-

234

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

ready delimited and still disputed frontiers of
Poland cannot fail to make one pessimistic about
the chances of a durable peace in eastern and cen-
tral Europe. The Poles have taken on as enemies
all their neighbors, Czechoslovaks, Ukrainians,
and Lithuanians, as well as Germans and Rus-
sians. On every frontier they have vigorously
insisted upon as much land as they could grab,
regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. The
state they have formed contains so many alien ele-
ments in geographical juxtaposition to "brothers
of blood" that it is bound to be seriously affected
when irredentist movements get under way.

During the first two years of the World War
Russian and Austrian Poland was a battle-ground
for the German and Russsian armies. The So-
cialist and Radical elements among the Poles,
whose headquarters were in Galicia, did all they
could to get Russian Poles to desert and fight for
the Central Empires. After the Austro-German
conquest of Russian Poland, the Poles were will-
ing to throw in their lot with the Central Em-
pires, provided Germany equally with Austria
would consent to make the sacrifices necessary for
the resurrection of the old Kingdom of Poland.
But the Germans were unwilling to make any
promises. After much parleying the independ-
ence of Russian Poland only was decreed on
November 5, 1916. The Russian Poles were

235

EUROPE SINCE 1918

grateful to Germany for having freed them from
the yoke of Russia, but they resisted the attempt
of Germany to raise an army for use against the
Entente Powers. During 191 7 and 191 8 resent-
ment against Germany increased to the breaking-
point, especially since the power of Russia was no
longer to be feared. Germany became what Rus-
sia had been at the beginning of the war, and the
victory of the Entente Powers, now that the alli-
ance with Russia was terminated, became for all
the Poles the hope of salvation.

In November, 1918, General Pilsudski, a Lith-
uanian Pole, who had been a prominent Socialist
leader, an officer in the Austrian army in the early
part of the war, and the creator of the Polish
Legion, was released from a German prison,
where he had been placed in 19 17. He returned
to Warsaw and resumed the command of the
Legion, whi'ch had secretly retained and de-
veloped its organization after Pilsudski's arrest.
Holding the military force, it was in Pilsudski's
power to constitute a government. He became
the head of the state at the end of 191 8, and had
the good sense to consent to the appointment of
Paderewski as premier, with the idea that the
celebrated pianist, best known of all Poles in Eu-
rope and America, would be the ideal man to head
the delegation to the Peace Conference. But at
home Pilsudski was very frank in expressing his

236

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

belief that after the peace negotiations were over
only a Socialist Government, with a program of
constructive democratic reform, could retain au-
thority in the state. The country was facing a
Bolshevist invasion, however, and the Paris nego-
tiators needed united support. So internal pol-
itics was kept in the background until after the
Treaty of Versailles and its supplementary treaty,
resurrecting Poland, were signed.

Reconstituted Poland received very liberal fron-
tiers on the west at the expense of Germany, with
a corridor to the Baltic Sea, thus cutting off East
Prussia from the rest of Germany. Danzig was
made a free city under the protection of the
League of Nations, despite its purely German
population ; but it was to be included in the Polish
customs frontiers, and its foreign relations were
to be under Polish control. Later plebiscites
were to determine whether Upper Silesia and two
districts of West Prussia should remain with Ger-
many or be handed over to Poland. The Treaty
of St. -Germain gave western Galicia to Poland,
and the Entente Powers agreed that eastern Gali-
cia should have autonomy for twenty-five years,
under the protection of Poland, after which its
inhabitants were to decide their destiny by a pleb-
iscite. The Poles had expected to obtain a clear
title to eastern Galicia, considering of no impor-
tance the fact that they were hardly more than

237

EUROPE SINCE 1918

10 per cent of its population of over three mil-
lions. The outcry raised by the nationalists at
Warsaw over eastern Galicia forced Paderewski
to resign the premiership. His stormy year in
politics had accomplished much for Poland, but he
himself was thoroughly discredited. He had not
shown himself as good a land-grabber as his com-
patriots had hoped. Paderewski is back at the
piano !

During the Peace Conference, and before Po-
land had an official status, she found herself en-
gaged in three wars. She was fighting at the
same time with the Czechoslovaks over the coke
and coal of Teschen, with the Ukrainians over
eastern Galicia, and with the Bolshevists over bor-
der-lands in a vast region whose political future
could not be decided. The Entente Powers,
wanting to maintain relations with reactionary
Russian elements, had avoided fixing a Russo-
Polish frontier. Any line they drew would have
offended the anti-Bolshevists and the Poles alike !

The war with the Czechoslovaks was too ridic-
ulous to last long. Both states were in the em-
bryo. Their future was being debated at Paris.
They were compelled to listen to reason, sign an
armistice, and submit the dispute to the Supreme
Council. Teschen was eventually cut in two, the
line running down a street in the town. But the
mining district and the railway went to Czecho-

238

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

Slovakia. The Poles were assured that they would
be compensated at the expense of Germany for
this loss, if something one had not yet had can
be called that. The Ukrainian war was compli-
cated by the division of the Ukrainians into two
parties. The anti-Bolshevists eventually joined
forces with the Poles against the Bolshevists;
and this mischance of civil war put the Ukrai-
nians of Eastern Galicia at the mercy of Poles.

The war with the Bolshevists dragged on
through the winter of 1919-20, largely because
the Entente Powers felt that it might be possible
to use Poland against Russia in conjunction with
the Kolchak and Denikin movements. The Poles
launched an offensive at the end of April, 1920,
and within two weeks had advanced to Kiev.
But the Bolshevists, having disposed of counter-
revolutionary movements, were able to concen-
trate all their forces against Poland. There was
a sudden change ih the fortune of arms. Poland
was invaded, and by the middle of August the
Russians had advanced to the suburbs of Warsaw.

In the meantime the Poles had sued for an
armistice. Polish plenipotentaries went to Minsk
on August 17, prepared to accept humiliating
terms, which included the reduction of the Polish
army to fifty thousand, the surrender of all arms
and war materials over and above what was neces-
sary for this small army, and the stoppage of war

239

EUROPE SINCE 1918

industries. These terms, together with the pro-
posal for the Vistula boundary, had been trans-
mitted to Poland by the intermediary of the Brit-
ish, and seemed reasonable to the British Govern-
ment, which had never countenanced Poland's in-
ordinate territorial ambitions.

By the time the Polish peace delegation reached
Minsk, the tide of battle had begun to turn. With
French staff aid the Polish army made a success-
ful counter-offensive, and the Bolshevists re-
treated as rapidly as they had advanced. The
shoe being now on the other foot, negotiations
were transferred to Riga, where on October 12,
1920, a treaty was signed as humiliating to Rus-
sia as the one the Bolshevists had intended to make
the Poles accept. Ukrainia was associated with
Russia in making the peace. Poland tried to
avoid dealing with Ukrainia as a Soviet govern-
ment, but on this point Moscow and Kiev were
obdurate. It was a surprise to the world that the
Moscow Soviet agreed to cede one hundred and
thirty-five thousand square kilometers, which
meant the loss of part of White Russia and the
cutting off of Russia from Lithuania. Poland
secured a corridor to Latvia, which enabled her
to begin immediately a frontier dispute with that
little state. Russia renounced intervention in ne-
gotiations between Lithuania and Poland, which
left Lithuania at the mercy of her larger neigh-

240

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

bor. The cessions in the northwest, when taken
into consideration with the creation of the Baltic
Republics, made still more difficult the trade com-
munication of Russia with Germany and the rest
of western Europe. In the south Poland estab-
lished a common frontier with Rumania at a sacri-
fice on the part of Soviet Ukrainia both of a large
part of Volhynia province, with a purely Ukrai-
nian population of more than a million, and also
of the claim to a union with Eastern Galicia, with
three million more Ukrainians.

The cessions of territory secured by Poland
under the terms of the Treaty of Riga were hailed
in Warsaw and Paris as a great triumph. But
when we take the Treaty of Riga and the Treaty
of Versailles together it is not hard to come to the
conclusion that the wild extravagance of Poland's
eastern and western boundaries, the result of the
unwise abuse of temporary power, will come to be
regarded as a source of fatal weakness. Add
the later decisions of the Entente Powers in regard
to Upper Silesia and Eastern Galicia, and we have
the problem of a new country, hardly more than
half of whose inhabitants are Poles, a country of
thirty millions, wedged in between Russia and
Germany, at the expense of both of whom Poland
has been constituted and put in possession of rail-
ways and oil-wells and coal-mines and industries.
Is it possible to suppose that Russia and Germany

241

EUROPE SINCE 1918

are rendered so permanently and completely pow-
erless that Poland is going to enjoy the peaceful
possession of what she has stolen and of what
others have stolen for her?

Since the Treaty of Riga, Poland, with the
backing of France, has scored three more notable
territorial successes, each of which has added
more alien inhabitants to the already alarmingly
conglomorate electorate of the new state. In each
case the decision in favor of Poland has been the
result of strong-arm methods. Previous deci-
sions, solemnly made, have been reversed when the
Poles have used force.

Eastern Galicia declared its independence at the
end of 1918, after the collapse of Austria-Hun-
gary. Under the old Austrian rule its inhabit-
ants, Ukrainians, had struggled long and success-
fully against the Poles and were just getting
control of the country when the World War broke
out. Although the cities contain mostly Poles
and Jews, t-he province is overwhelmingly Ukrai-
nian. The Poles have about 10 per cent and the
Jews 15 per cent. In May, 1919, the Poles in-
vaded Eastern Galicia, and in July secured from
the Supreme Council the authorization to occupy
the country — two months after it had been done !
It was arranged that Poland should hold Eastern

Galicia for twenty-five years as an autonomous

242

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

province, and that there should be a plebiscite in
1944.

Poland began a reign of terror in Eastern Gali-
cia, suspending the Diet and Provincial Executive
on January 30, closing Ukrainian schools, sup-
pressing Ukrainian newspapers, and conscripting
Ukrainians by force into the Polish army. When
the time came for elections to the Polish Diet, the
army was used at the polls to prevent the people
from returning Ukrainian deputies. The brutal-
ity of the Polish army and the methods of the
Polish Government in Eastern Galicia are as bad
as anything the Germans and Russians have ever
done. This is a strong statement, but it is based
upon unimpeachable testimony. I have only re-
cently heard accounts of punitive expeditions to
the villages in the Przemysl district that might
have been written about Europeans in central
Africa. At Przemysl the Ukrainian recruits
marched handcuffed through the streets singing
patriotic songs. This is how Poland is raising
her armies!

Notwithstanding the determination of the East-
ern Galicians to have nothing to do with their
age-old enemies, on March 16, 1923, the Council
of Ambassadors at Paris allotted full sovereignty
over Eastern Galicia to Poland. Former Secre-
tary Colby was in Paris, retained by the Ukrai-

243

EUROPE SINCE 1918

nians to plead their cause. But he was refused a
hearing. The Ukrainians were ignored. The de-
cision was made solely at the suggestion of
France, who had received from Poland control of
50 per cent of the oil-wells and 75 per cent of the
refining factories in Eastern Galicia as security
for a loan of 400,000,000 francs for military pur-
poses. As a last resort, the Ukrainians requested
that the status of their country be referred to the
League of Nations or the Hague tribunal. As
they did not have the backing of a great power, as
the Poles had, the request was ignored. This set-
tlement of the Eastern Galician question creates a
large and dangerous Alsace-Lorraine in eastern
Europe. None who knows local conditions doubts
that Ukrainia will eventually intervene on behalf
of her "oppressed brethren," with the backing of
Russia.1

1 In fairness to the Polish Government it must be stated that
the Diet, in anticipation of the Ambassadors' action, passed a
law in September, 1922, granting autonomy to Eastern Galicia.
According to Count Skrzynski, the Polish Foreign Minister,
interviewed in London on April 13, 1923, by a correspondent of
the "Christian Science Monitor," there are to be three local
parliaments in Eastern Galicia, with two chambers, one of which
must be composed of members of the Ukrainian community.
Permanent officials will be appointed by the governor in a way
corresponding "with the actual requirements of the two nation-
alities." Governmental and judicial affairs are to be conducted
in the Polish language, but the county parliaments may de-
termine their own official language. These measures seem to
me (I am familiar with local conditions) calculated to prevent
the Ukrainians from voicing their national aspirations, and for
this reason to be the granting of autonomy in name only. The
law contains two good provisions, however, the promise of the

244

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

Poland had allowed her insatiable territorial
greed to create for her another danger' on the
East as great as that of Eastern Galicia. We
have read in another chapter how General Zeli-
gowski violated the armistice agreement arranged
between Poland and Lithuania by the intermedi-
ary of the League of Nations. Zeligowski, fol-
lowing the successful example of d'Annunzio.
seized Vilna, capital of Lithuania. When the
Lithuanian Government protested to the League
of Nations, the Polish Government answered that
Zeligowski had acted on his own initiative, and
that Poland was not responsible for him. But
Warsaw took full advantage of the breach of
faith, and, again with French backing, manceu-
vered diplomatically so as to secure a decision of
the Conference of Ambassadors, on March 15,
1923, arbitrarily dividing Lithuania in two. The
Vilna district contains a mixed population, with
White Russians predominating. But there are
more Lithuanians than Poles, and Vilna is the
historic capital of Lithuania. The decision of
the ambassadors, after the League of Nations had
failed to settle the question, consecrates Zeligow-
ski's coup de force. The Lithuanians have offi-
cially declared that they will not acquiesce in the
settlement, and they warn the Entente Powers

establishment and maintenance of a Ukrainian university out of
state funds, and the prohibition of colonization in Eastern
Galicia.

oa e

EUROPE SINCE 1918

that "such a wrong done to the most powerful
instincts of racial self-preservation may precip-
itate untoward events." The reply of the Entente
Powers was to give the Lithuanians authority to
inflict a wrong upon the Germans at Memel such
as the Poles inflicted upon them at Vilna! The
Moscow Soviet, speaking for once in the name of
all Russia irrespective of party, immediately
warned London and Paris that the Occidental
powers "are responsible for prejudice to Russian
interests through decisions adopted by them with-
out the participation of Russia and her Allies."

The third dubious success gained by Poland
since her reconstitution was the decision of the
League of Nations to divide Upper Silesia after
the province had voted by nearly three hundred
thousand majority to remain with Germany. Be-
fore and after the plebiscite Polish bands, with
the connivance of the French, overran Upper
Silesia. The British and Italians on the spot
protested in vain. The decision of the League
of Nations, dividing Upper Silesia, awarded
to Poland most of the mines and factories,
which had been created by German indus-
try and run by German engineers. To make this
possible, thriving industrial towns that had given
substantial majorities in the plebiscite in favor of
Germany were put on the Polish side of the line.
I was in Kattowitz when the transfer from French

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RESURRECTION OF POLAND

military occupation to Poland took place. The
Treaty of Versailles did not bind the victors to
make the partition in accordance with the verdict
of its inhabitants. The vote was to be for "guid-
ance" only. France stood out squarely for giv-
ing Kattowitz to Poland. Aside from the con-
sideration of crippling Germany as much as was
humanly possible, the French military authorities
pointed out that Kattowitz must be taken from
Germany because through this city ran the rail-
way from Prague to Warsaw.

The Poles argued that the country-side around
these German cities like Kattowitz contained a
Polish peasant population, and that the large Ger-
man population in the cities was due to coloniza-
tion. But when I had been in Eastern Galicia,
where Lemberg had a Polish and Jewish ma-
jority and the country was Ukrainian — more
Ukrainian than the country districts of Upper
Silesia were Polish — I was told that it was
the city population that counted ! Alarm for the
peace of Europe and not sympathy with Germany
for the loss of this rich region prompts one to de-
nounce the decision by which people were bar-
tered like cattle and were placed under a Govern-
ment that will have great difficulty in utilizing
the resources thrust into its inexperienced hands.
Decisions of this sort in international questions
are precisely what keep alive old animosities, and

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

sow the seeds of new wars. The problems are not
solved ; they remain, and are aggravated.

The new frontier in Upper Silesia will give rise
to countless difficulties. The provisions for the
"preservation of the economic unity of Upper
Silesia" will not succeed. Poles and Germans
have closed the frontier to each other. They
could not have done otherwise. And they have
mounted guard to the detriment of any peace
within the near future. An Englishman who
knows Upper Silesia thoroughly told me that the
country would go to smash — on both sides of the
frontier — as it would be impossible to work out
on a sound economic basis the coal and iron and
railway readjustments made necessary with the
new frontier. "It just can't be done," said my
informant, "and one of these days we shall read
despatches in the newspapers telling us that the
Germans and Russians have decided to take back
what is now given to Poland. And who will
prevent them ?" 1

In contrast to the success of her neighbor,
Czechoslovakia, Poland has been floundering in
the mire of financial difficulties from the day of
her birth. Of course, the conditions confronting

1 "Perhaps the severest blow to the prospects of peace in
Europe and its economic recovery," is how a number of British
economists characterized the Upper Silesian decision in an open
letter to the press. They pointed out that the loss of Konig-
shiitte, Kattowitz, Rybnik, and Pless made inevitable the day of
German default in reparation payments.

248

RESURRECTION OF POLAND

the two new Governments were entirely different.
Because Bohemia had highly organized industries
that furnished most of the war materials for
Austria-Hungary, the Czechoslovaks prospered
throughout the war. And Czechoslovakia was
not invaded. Poland, on the other hand, had
been a battle-ground, and had suffered as much as
northern France and Serbia from the ravages of
contending armies. It is impossible to overesti-
mate the economic damage done to Poland not
only by the fighting but also by the dislocation of
her industrial and agricultural life.

For all that, the natural richness of the country
might easily have turned the balance in the years
immediately after hostilities had not the new state
taken upon itself from the very beginning the
burden of military ventures and a large standing
army. Ever since the end of 1918 Poland has
strained every nerve to keep up a military estab-
lishment and to accomplish the various extensions
of her frontiers outlined in this chapter. When
territories are occupied they must be subjugated ;
and when they are subjugated they must be de-
fended. Thus it is that the Polish Government
has never had a chance to get a breathing-spell to
put its financial house in order and attempt to
balance its budget. The printing-presses have
turned out paper money by the trillion. The Po-
lish mark has gradually sunk until now it stands

249

EUROPE SINCE 1918

hardly better than the Austrian crown. From
a financial point of view, as indicated by her ex-
change, Poland, although she has no national debt
as an inheritance and no indemnities to pay, stands
with the conquered nations. She has recently
been voted a loan of 400,000,000 francs by
France "for the purpose of improving Poland's
financial and economic situation so that she may
resume her proper place in the European con-
cert of nations and play the role to which her
geographical position and her history entitle
her."

So ran the resolution adopted by the French
Chamber of Deputies. But it was soon discov-
ered that the purpose of the loan was to increase
still further the Polish army and to develop Po-
lish factories capable of producing war materials.
With what result? The Polish mark is still far
below the German mark in purchasing-power.
That means that it has virtually no purchasing-
power! Militarism is the curse of Poland, and
there is no hope of economic rehabilitation until
the revenues of the nation and the money she can
borrow abroad are devoted to purposes of peace.

At the Peace Conference the British advocated
the restriction of the frontiers of Poland to re-
gions inhabited in large majority by Poles.
They argued that the award to the new republic

of provinces with alien majorities, at the expense

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RESURRECTION OF POLAND

of Germany and Russia, would create fatal ir-
redentist questions. But such a Poland would
have been an agricultural country, without access
to the sea, and without a common frontier with
Rumania. France wanted a Poland to take the
place of Russia as an ally, possessing the iron
and coal and oil essential to military power in
the twentieth century. The French plan, for the
accomplishment of which the doctrine of self-
determination would have to be sponsored or ig-
nored as it fitted the plan, called for a cordon
sanitaire of allied states separating Germany and
Russia.

The success of the French point of view has
made the Polish republic a heterogeneous con-
glomeration of peoples, among whom the pure
Poles have a bare majority. Aside from the mil-
lions of Germans, Lithuanians, White Russians,
and Ukrainians, Poland contains the largest Jew-
ish population in the world. The Jews in Poland
are a separate people, tenacious of their language
and customs, who would have furnished a serious
enough internal political problem for the new re-
public had Poland been given her proper ethno-
graphic frontiers. But, as the country is now
constituted, the balance of power in the parlia-
ment is held by the Jewish and alien deputies.
The folly of the attempt to found a Poland with
universal suffrage in accordance with the French

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

plan is demonstrated by the political confusion of
the last four years. Poland was bound by the
Minorities Treaty of June 28, 19 19, to grant
equality to all elements of the new state. The
difficulties with the Jews were quite sufficient in
themselves. But when millions of other peoples
have been brought against their will into Poland,
it is easily seen that the Polish Nationalists are
having hard sledding.

The National Democratic party, comprising the
landed gentry and the educated classes in general,
who had led the independence movement, thought
that it was their right to control the government.
But from the beginning they had to contend with
the peasant and labor and Socialist combination,
which matched them in strength, and which could
easily run the country by Jewish and German-
Ukrainian support. Pilsudski, who retained for
four years the transitional title of Chief of the
State, insisted that no conservative Government
could live in Poland. The natural majority was
'Socialist (with the peasant support), and any at-
tempt to keep the Nationalists in the saddle, ac-
cording to Pilsudski, would be futile.

The first General Election under the new con-
stitution was held on November 5 and 12, 1922.
Strenuous efforts were made in every part of the
country to prevent the exercise of suffrage on the
part of the new alien Minorities and the Jews.

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RESURRECTION OF POLAND

Despite intimidation and glaring fraud, the new
Parliament did not contain a Nationalist major-
ity. The Nationalist Right and the Populist-
Socialist-Labor Left had about the same strength
in both Diet and Senate, with a center group of
Jews and "foreigners" holding the balance of
power. The test came in the election of the first
president of Poland. Pilsudski refused to run,
not wanting to owe his election to the votes of
Jews and Germans. Count Maurice Zamoyski,
Polish minister in Paris, whose family had played
a glorious role in Poland for centuries, was the
candidate of the Right. The Left put up Pro-
fessor Narutowicz, who had been living in exile
at Zurich for many years, and who returned to
Poland to become minister of foreign affairs
after the resurrection. Zamoyski, idol of the
Nationalists, was defeated.

Feeling ran high in Warsaw. For several
days a pogrom was feared. Molested in the
streets, the Jews took to cover. Had not the
police behaved admirably there would have been
serious loss of life and destruction of property.
The worst offenders were not hooligans but stu-
dents and older men of the so-called intelligentsia.
General Haller, former commander of the Polish
Corps in France during the war and later of the
volunteer army that stemmed the Bolshevist ad-
vance in IQ20, imprudently allowed himself to

253

EUROPE SINCE 1918

be drawn into the street manifestations. He ad-
dressed the students in an inflammatory manner,
crying out that the Poles had been outvoted in
their own country by Jews and foreigners. It
was unthinkable, General Haller said, that a man
like Zamoyski, who represented the noblest tradi-
tions of Poland, should have been defeated.

The new president, to prove that he was not
under the control of the Left and the Jews, im-
mediately asked the Right to form a new Gov-
ernment. Not only did the irritated Nationalists
refuse this overture, but they absented themselves
from the inauguration, and declared that they
would abstain from participation in Parliament.
The police had to take stringent measures to
protect the members of the Diet and the repre-
sentatives of foreign legations who appeared
for the ceremony. The President was smug-
gled in. When the inauguration was over, the
Nationalists formed barricades, and the police
had to charge. The automobile of M. Naru-
towicz made slow progress back to the palace,
and all along the way the first president of
Poland was pelted with snow-balls and mud.
Five days after he took the oath of office, he was
assassinated. The crime was explained as the
act of an insane man without accomplices, but
there can be no doubt that it was prompted by

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RESURRECTION OF POLAND

the feeling aroused over the defeat of the Nation-
alist candidate.1

A strong revulsion of feeling followed this
crime. It was realized that the very existence
of Poland was at stake. General Sikorski, Chief
of Statf , assumed the premiership, proclaimed the
country in danger, and appealed to all parties to
join in solving the crisis. Alarmed over the pos-
sibility that rioting in Warsaw might react un-
favorably upon the morale, of the army, Premier
Sikorski was ready for strong measures. When
parliament met again on December 20, and
Stanislas Wojciechowski, the candidate of the
Left and Center, was elected over Professor
Morawski, of the University of Cracow, one of
the leaders of the Right, the Nationalists decided
to accept their defeat.

This sad experience was a demonstration of the

1 The assassin was disclaimed by his party, the National
Democrats, as an irresponsible neurotic, and was executed on
January 31. But ever since his death the Nationalists have re-
garded him as a martyr. Contributions to "place a wreath on
the grave of Niewiadomski" were solicited in the press ; and all
over Poland mass was said, in the presence of distinguished
congregations, "for the pure soul of Eligius Niewiadomski, who
by the sacrifice of his own life has awakened the spirit of the
nation." According to the Warsaw correspondent of "The Man-
chester Guardian" (April 6, 1923), in many places shops were
forced to close when these services were held : and the move-
ment gained such volume in the churches that the Roman Cath-
olic episcopate of Poland saw itself forced to intervene and
declare that "although it is laudable to pray for the souls of
the dead, the Holy Mass should not be made to serve purposes
of political propaganda and demonstration."

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

old truth that you cannot keep your cake and eat
it. Unless the elements other than Poles are
barred from taking part in elections, the Polish
Nationalists will never be able to get the Govern-
ment into their hands. Half the Poles are sup-
porters of agrarian reform or some kind or other
of Socialism, and they place these issues above
nationalism. In fact, the majority of the radicals
abhor nationalism. They put class ahead of race
interests. Greater Poland was a glorious dream,
but its realization has meant the disillusionment
of the dreamers. If Poland is to continue to ex-
ist as an independent state with its present boun-
daries, the landed gentry will have to abdicate
their special privileges and become democratized,
while the Polish Nationalists will have to abandon
the notion that the privileges of Polish citizen-
ship are the inherent right of those alone who
speak the Polish language and glory in Polish
traditions and culture.

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CHAPTER XIII

THE CREATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

F the new states created by the Paris

treaties, Czechoslovakia has had the most

uneventful existence and is by all odds
the most flourishing. In fact, it is the only one of
the Succession States to the Hapsburg Empire
whose political and economic life is functioning
normally. When one arrives in Prague, one is
immediately struck with the naturalness of the
new regime. It is as if it had always been. And
when one goes to the Burg and visits the offices
of the new Government, which has now been
functioning under the control of the same men
for nearly five years, there is no feeling of coming
into contact with something parvenu or inchoate
or absurd. Across from the Ministry of For-
eign Affairs workmen are busy on the cathedral.
"When was this started?" I asked. "We have
been working on this addition — in reality it is
the main part of the cathedral, you know — for
six hundred years." Nothing illustrates better
the spirit reigning to-day in Czechoslovakia.
Freed from a bad dream, the old Kingdom of
Bohemia is taking up once more the problem of

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

playing an independent role in central Europe.

An American in Vienna told me that Czecho-
slovakia was "a Bologna sausage impossibly
sprawling across the map," and expressed in no
uncertain terms his belief in the approaching col-
lapse of a country "without natural frontiers and
economic or geographical raison d'etre and made
up of a congeries of races among which the
Czechs are in the minority." An Austrian cab-
inet minister added, "The old racial and irreden-
tist problems of this part of the world were not
solved by the treaties of St. -Germain and Tri-
anon; they were only transferred from Vienna
to Prague."

If one considers the question of the viability
of Czechoslovakia from the strict point of view
of geography and ethnography, there would in-
deed seem to be little hope for the future of this
curiously composite state. Czechoslovakia is
long and narrow, and part of her frontiers are
arbitrary. Out of a population of less than
13,000,000, there are more than 3,000,000 Ger-
mans and nearly 1,000,000 Hungarians. Ruthe-
nians or Ukrainians number 500,000. And
there are Jews and some Poles. Whether the
Czechs are outnumbered by "alien races" depends
upon the classification of the two other branches
of the Slav family in the body politic. Are
Moravians and Slovaks different people from the

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CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Czechs ? Even if they be counted as the same or
similar, possessing common historical traditions,
using kindred languages, sharing common aspira-
tions, and being willing to throw their lot in with
the Czechs, there is a difference in culture — a
striking difference. The Slovaks and the peoples
of other regions ceded by Hungary to Czecho-
slovakia contain a large percentage of illiterates.
The Czechs in the Kingdom of Bohemia are
virtually all literate. The wife of a cabinet min-
ister told me that she had never in her life met
anybody who could not read and write. What
American could say the same?

President Masaryk is a Moravian, and Gen-
eral Stefanik is a Slovak. These two men, to-
gether with Dr. Benes, a Czech, were the leaders
in securing the recognition of Czechoslovak in-
dependence, and have succeeded in retaining the
confidence of their people during the formative
years of the new republic. This fact in itself,
however, is not indicative of a real fusion of the
Slavic elements. It will be remembered that even
during the war some of the most prominent Aus-
trian statesmen were Czechs, notably Count
Czernin. The Czechs make up 46 per cent of
the population of the new state, and even with the
Slovaks amount to only 60 per cent. The two
million Slovaks have insisted upon autonomy
from the very beginning of the national life, and

EUROPE SINCE 1918

only their cultural inferiority has prevented them
from acting as the Croats have acted in Jugo-
slavia.

The greatest problem is that of the Germans,
who live in a more or less compact mass in re-
gions contiguous to Germany and Austria.
Were it not for two saving factors in the situ-
ation, the natural mountain frontier separating
the Germans of Bohemia from Germany and the
cultural equality of the Czechs with the Germans,
the presence in the body politic of a German bloc,
comprising 27 per cent of the total population,
would make Czechoslovakia a hopeless proposi-
tion. For, after the collapse of the Central Em-
pires, the Germans of Bohemia declared them-
selves united to Austria and opposed to the bitter
end the determination of the Peace Conference
to put them under Czech rule in defiance of the
right of self-determination. The Germans form
a separate party in the Czechoslovak parliament,
and use their own language in addressing the
chair -and in debates. They assert that they are
citizens of Czechoslovakia against their will and
that they had no part in forming the new consti-
tution under which they are governed. They re-
sent the sudden change of fortune of the Teutonic
master race. Their new position is humiliating.

But powerful material considerations have led

them to make the best of a bad business and to

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CZECHOSLOVAKIA

accept the fait accompli. Austria is in a sorry
plight, and the condition of Germany is not much
better. The Germans of Czechoslovakia are far
better off, although politically depressed, than
Germans in any other part of the world. Com-
paratively speaking, the country of which they
are now citizens is prosperous, and they form
a large enough element to be able to stand up for
their rights in the new state. The danger to
Czechoslovakia of containing so large a German
population will come only when Germany has re-
habilitated herself, or if Austria succeeds in
reaching a degree of prosperity equal to that of
Czechoslovakia.

On the other hand, despite the large minorities,
Czechoslovakia has an excellent chance of lasting
and, by a steadily increasing prosperity, making
her unwilling citizens content with their lot.
Czechoslovakia is the only new state formed
wholly out of the Hapsburg Empire. Prague
does not have the problems of Bucharest, Bel-
grade, and Warsaw, where peoples separated
through centuries and impregnated with different
cultures and radically divergent political ideals
and political experience have been brought to-
gether under a new roof. Not a portion of the
Czechs but all of them have had political educa-
tion and have been familiar with suffrage and
parliamentary life. The Czechs had their quota

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

of functionaries in the Hapsburg Empire, which
gives them trained men for government service.
Without intending offense, one might say that the
Czechs are the most promising of the newly
emancipated people because they are German-
trained in public life, administration, and educa-
tion, as well as in business. They possess a Ger-
man mentality — in the better sense of that term —
and this is the reason they have made such won-
derful progress in five years and present to the
visitor the picture of a state functioning with-
out confusion and possessing all that makes for
durability.

From large portions of Jugoslavia and Ru-
mania it is going to take a long time to obliterate
the four centuries of subjection to Ottoman rule.
Rumania and Poland have elements that remained
for centuries under the Russian yoke. Bohemia
was in slavery, but gentle slavery. The Slavs
were discriminated against, it is true, but not in
a way fatal to their cultural or economic develop-
ment. The country was not partitioned, and
Austrian rule could not be compared with that of
Turkey or Russia. The territories that go to
make up Czechoslovakia shared the prosperity of
the last half-century of the Hapsburg Empire,
and they contained — already developed — fac-
tories, mines, and agricultural and forest indus-
tries second to none in Europe. Mark the words

262

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

"already developed." When you go to Bucharest
or Belgrade or Warsaw you are told what the
people hope to do, and the potential wealth of the
country is impressed upon you. Foreign capital
is essential, and there is the constant anxiety that
its introduction be not accompanied by political
subserviency to the great powers and economic
dependence upon them. But at Prague you do
not have to visualize the future. The actual
wealth of the country and its existing machinery
for production are sufficient guarantees of its
ability to live alone. Railways do not have to be
built; they are already there. Men do not have
to go through the painful stages of learning par-
liamentary manners, and officials are not running
around madly with more good will than knowl-
edge. Czechoslovakia is the one going concern
created by the Paris -Conference.

In several respects the birth of Czechoslovakia
differed from that of Poland and Jugoslavia and
from the formation of Greater Rumania and
Greater Greece.

Alone among the smaller peoples subject to the
Central Empires or influenced by them, the
Czechoslovaks from the beginning of the World
War made up their minds that their bread was
buttered on the side of an Entente victory. Un-
like the Poles and Jugoslavs, they deserted from
the Austro-Hungarian armies on every occasion,

263

EUROPE SINCE 1918

and when they went over to the Entente they
risked being shot for treason if captured when
fighting in the Entente armies. They rendered
appreciable services by this technical disloyalty,
and before the end of the war they had under
arms divisions on three battle-fronts and an army
in Siberia. Their leaders who managed to es-
cape from the country burned their bridges be-
hind them, and those who stayed at home, like
Dr. Kramar, first premier of the new state, al-
most lost their lives by insisting during the war
upon the resurrection of Bohemia as one of the
conditions of peace.

Added to loyalty to the cause of those to whom
they looked for emancipation was an amazing
sense of moderation, unique among the liberated
peoples. Before the emancipation the Czechs
were willing to be guided by the councils of the
great powers, and after the liberation they took
a sensible view toward minorities. They did not
combat or attempt to override the decisions of
the Peace Conference. Curious as it was, their
new state was spontaneously formed by the rec-
ognition of the Bohemian claims to statehood
by Austria just before the collapse, and by the
voluntary adhesion of national councils in Mo-
ravia, Silesia, Slovakia, and Russina to the nu-
cleus of a common government already formed at
Prague. The Prague authorities gained no ter-

264

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

ritory by conquest, and arms did not have to
be used against the German and Hungarian mi-
norities, whose incorporation in the new state was
provided for by the Treaties of St.-Germain and
Trianon.

Rumania based her territorial claims upon a
definite agreement with the Entente Powers, em-
bodied in a secret treaty, which was the price
paid for her intervention. Greece relied upon
Premier Venizelos' skilful manoeuvering in the
mazes of Entente Near Eastern diplomacy. The
Poles put their cause in the hands of France from
the beginning, and, having been saved by France
at the time of the Bolshevist invasion in 1920,
became more convinced than ever that their sal-
vation lay in listening to the Quai d'Orsay. The
Jugoslav problem was singularly complicated by
the unwillingness of the Pan-Serbs, under Pre-
mier Pashitch, to make up their minds in 1918
whether they wanted a Greater Serbia or a new
state, Jugoslavia, in which old Serbia would lose
her identity. The Czechoslovaks were not com-
pelled and did not feel the inclination to seek the
favor of any one great power or to play one
power against another. Only in the dispute with
the Poles over Teschen was there a momentary
embarrassment. In all other questions the
Czechoslovaks were lucky in not having their
interest conflict with the ambitions of the great

265

EUROPE SINCE 1918

powers. They made only one serious blunder
at Paris, which is reacting unfavorably against
them to-day in Slovakia. That was when they
agreed to include in their new state the island
and mainland along the Danube east of Press-
burg (Bratislava). This was awarded to them
for strategic reasons, but they now see that the
burden of half a million Hungarians subjects was
too big a price to pay for it.

The success of Czechoslovakia in her foreign
policy has been largely due to the ability and con-
tinuity in office of Dr. Benes, a Prague university
professor, and a refugee in Paris during the war,
who worked for years, in the face of every dis-
couragement, to enlist the sympathy of the En-
tente Powers in the Czech cause. When the
hour of liberation came, the Czechs had the good
sense to keep Benes in Paris as delegate at the
Peace Conference, and to make him minister of
foreign affairs. Dr. Benes established the fol-
lowing basic principles of Czechoslovak foreign
policy: (1) help to Austria and an economic un-
derstanding with Austria; (2) prevention of an
attempt on the part of Hungary to upset the
Treaty of Trianon by an alliance with Rumania
and Jugoslavia, the two other beneficiaries of
that treaty; (3) steadfast refusal to become the
catspaw of any other power or group of powers
in dealings with Russia; (4) realization of the

266

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

patent fact that security against Germany in the
future could not be obtained by any particular
alliance but only by the functioning of an all-
inclusive society of nations.

The Czechoslovak Government has differenti-
ated clearly between Austria and Hungary as po-
tential enemies. It has assumed that Italy can
be relied upon never to allow an independent Aus-
tria to become a military menace, and that France
is vitally interested in preventing the union of
Austria with Germany. An Austria impotent
militarily but still able to exist independently is
what Czechoslovak interests demand, and it is
comforting to realize that two great powers are
natural allies in the attainment of these two ob-
jects. Because Italy mounts guard against a re-
currence of Austrian militarism, Czechoslo-
vakia can afford to see Austria flourish econom-
ically. In fact, the prosperity of Austria is an
aim of Czechoslovak foreign policy, in which
France can be counted upon to help, because the
union of Austria with Germany would be a
calamity to France and Czechoslovakia alike.

Dr. Benes maintains that the sweeping changes
of the Treaty of St. -Germain were necessary to
make possible an absolutely free hand for former
subject peoples in dealing with former masters.
It is as essential to separate Hungary from Aus-
tria along the Danube as it is for the Czecho-

267

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Slovaks to have an outlet to that river. But
Czechoslovakia would be foolish to abuse her
freedom of action by rendering the economic life
of Austria intolerable. On the contrary, the eco-
nomic and political interests of Czechoslovakia
dictate making every effort to help Austria re-
habilitate herself. Through Austria passes
Czechoslovakia's outlet to the Mediterranean
The two states are neighbors and must logically
trade with each other. Most important of all,
unless life is made tolerable for Austria she will
be forced into union with Germany. And this
would menace the very existence of Czecho-
slovakia !

The Czechoslovak attitude toward Hungary is
quite different from that toward Austria. No
great powers are particularly interested in hold-
ing Hungary down, and Italy is suspected of en-
couraging Hungary to check her nightmare of
Slavic predominance on the Adriatic. East of
the White Carpathians the Slovaks and the
Ruthenians are not accustomed to the separation
from Hungary and not altogether reconciled to
it. The Czechs are not culturally inferior to the
Germans; the Slovaks are culturally inferior to
the Hungarians; while Ruthenian loyalty to the
new state cannot be blindly counted upon. A
defensive alliance with Rumania and Jugoslavia
to prevent the resurrection of Hungarian military

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CZECHOSLOVAKIA

power was a logical move. A convention was
signed with Jugoslavia on August 13, 1920, and
when its value was demonstrated by the part it
played to prevent the restoration of Emperor
Charles to the throne of Hungary, Rumania
joined the "Little Entente" on April 23, 192 1.

Rumania, despite her exposed position, had to
enter into the Entente counter-revolutionary con-
spiracies against Russia because she depended
upon Entente indorsement to legalize and defend
her annexation of Bessarabia. Greece had gone
into the ill fated French military venture in South
Russia because France insisted upon this as the
price of supporting Greek claims to Thrace.
Poland allowed herself to be used from the be-
ginning against the Bolshevists because she was
infeudated to French policy and could look for
large territorial gains as a price of cooperation.
But Czechoslovakia, although her spectacular
Legion had done much to help the Allied Powers
against the Bolshevists in eastern Russia and Si-
beria, refused flatly to keep up hostilities against
the Moscow Soviet, once independence was as-
sured. The new state turned a deaf ear to all
persuasion. The Prague Government went to
the length of following the example of Germany
by proclaiming and forcing strict neutrality when
Poland and Soviet Russia were at war. A howl
went up in France in the summer of 1920 when

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

the Czechs took the same stand as the British
High Commissioner at Danzig, and forbade the
transit of war material destined to Poland.

The Czechoslovak Government is frankly
anti-Communist and has no sympathy with the
Moscow doctrines. But the Czechoslovaks are
not enemies of the Russians, like the Poles and
the Rumanians, and they consider Bolshevism a
temporary misfortune and not a crime for which
the Russians are to be punished and despoiled of
territories. Before the Genoa Conference Dr.
Benes notified the Entente Powers and the United
States that Czechoslovakia intended to make an
agreement with Soviet Russia. This was done,
notwithstanding French and American disap-
proval.

At the time Dr. Benes explained Czechoslo-
vakia's attitude to me as follows: "The United
States can afford to take the attitude of complete
non-intercourse with Moscow. But we cannot.
We have our security to think of, and we want to
be prepared for the trade opportunities that will
open up in the future as Russia becomes stable
again. Russia is one of our most promising mar-
kets. We must have a delegation at Moscow,
to know what is going on in Russia, and to be
ready for trade when it offers itself. Our strug-
gle for existence, economically and politically, is

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CZECHOSLOVAKIA

such that we must think of the future and take
Russia into our calculations."

No country deplores more the weakness of the
League of Nations and is more alarmed over
what we might term international anarchy than
Czechoslovakia. With her composite population
and her peculiar geographic position, with impos-
sible frontiers from the strategic point of view,
she is eager for some permanent assurance of in-
ternational political stability. There are only
about six million Czechs. Even with the Slo-
vaks, they number scarcely eight millions.
Czechoslovakia could not exist if the Germans of
Bohemia went to Germany and the Hungarians
of Slovakia to Hungary. It is natural, then, that
security of frontiers, based upon international
agreement rather than upon force or precarious
alliances, is the goal of the Czechoslovak diplo-
macy. This explains the move of Dr. Benes at
the Genoa Conference in the summer of 1922,
when he tried to get the powers to accept the
most elementary of all principles, that of a uni-
versal and binding compact of non-aggression.
The Czechoslovaks, not being able to defend their
state, and fearing to have the defense of the
treaties to which they owe their existence depend
upon armies and alliances, have proposed uni-
versal and reciprocal declaration of the sanctity

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

of frontiers, and want the League of Nations to
become an automatic proscriber of any nation dis-
turbing the status quo of the Paris peace settle-
ment.

When we estimate the chances of long life for
so curiously formed a state as Czechoslovakia,
we have no other grounds for assuming its dura-
bility than the adoption of a program like that
advocated by Dr. Benes at Genoa. If the Ger-
mans all get together none can prevent them from
snuffing the life out of Czechoslovakia, especially
if they are able to form once more an alliance
with Hungary. Italy alone could put obstacles in
the path of such a program, provided there is
no world organization to maintain the frontiers
of the Paris treaties.

272

CHAPTER XIV

THE EVOLUTION OF SERBIA INTO
JUGOSLAVIA

HE little Balkan Kingdom of Serbia was a

principality under the suzerainty of the

Ottoman Empire for half a century after
its resurrection during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Serbs engaged in a war with Turkey in 1876,
which led to the intervention of Russia, and to
the recognition by the powers of the independence
of Serbia in the Treaty of Berlin. The limits
of the new kingdom were so drawn as to exclude
the northern part of Macedonia, which was left
to Turkey, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ad-
ministration of which was entrusted to Austria-
Hungary, without detaching these territories
from the Ottoman Empire. The little principal-
ity of Montenegro, whose inhabitants had suc-
cessfully resisted the Turks for centuries, was
also declared independent by the Treaty of Berlin.
In 1908, after the Young Turk revolution, Aus-
tria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the Balkan Wars of 191 2 and 191 3, little
Serbia succeeded in nearly doubling her territory

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

and adding 50 per cent to her population at the
expense of Turkey and Bulgaria. An important
part of the new territory, however, contained a
non-Serbian majority.

Of the Serbian-speaking peoples, known as the
Jugoslavs, considerably more than half were in
the Hapsburg dominions at the outbreak of the
World War. The kingdom of Serbia had a pop-
ulation of 3,000,000 before the Balkan Wars,
which added 1,500,000 more, of whom 1,000,000
by the most liberal estimate could be considered
'Serbs. In round numbers the Jugoslavs in 191S
were distributed as follows:

Old Serbia

3,000,000

New Serbia

1 ,000,000

Montenegro

500,000

Croatia and Slavonia

2,600,000

Bosnia and Herzegovina

2,000,000

Dalmatia

1 ,000,000

Slovenia

1,500,000

Istria

400,000

Banat of Temesvar

250,000

Other parts of Hungary

1 ,000,000

We must have these figures before

us to realize

the tremendous difficulties confronting the new
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, cre-
ated by the Treaties of St. -Germain and Trianon.

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

Greater Rumania was formed by adding between
four and five million liberated Rumanians and an
equal number of alien peoples to an independent
kingdom already containing more than seven
million Rumanians. Greater Serbia was formed
by adding 8,000,000 liberated Jugoslavs and the
half-million already independent Montenegrins to
4,000,000 independent Serbians. The figures
alone demonstrate the difference in the problem.
If the Serbians were to maintain their supremacy
over the redeemed brethren, it was going to be
a case of the tail trying to wag the dog.

But there is a still wider divergence between
the problems of Greater Rumania and Greater
Serbia than is shown by the figures. The re-
deemed Rumanians could be assimilated with
those of the kingdom into one nation. They had
a common interest in standing together against
alien elements formidable in number. In Greater
Serbia the Serbian-speaking elements had been
separated for centuries. With radically different
social and political, religious and cultural back-
grounds, amalgamation was a complicated prob-
lem. Many Serbians have attempted to draw a
parallel between the unification of the Italians and
that of the Jugoslavs. The analogy does not
hold, because the Italians were all of the same
religion, they were a product of the same Occi-
dental culture, and their social and political expe-

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

rience had not, in modern times, at least, been
dissimilar. The Jugoslavs, on the other hand,
had been separated since the Middle Ages by
formidable barriers.

Serbs and Montenegrins are Orthodox; Bos-
nians, Herzegovinians, and a portion of the in-
habitants of what is known as New Serbia are
Orthodox, Catholic, and Mohammedan; while
most of the Croats, Dalmatians, and Slovenes are
Catholic. The Jugoslavs of the Hapsburg Em-
pire are Occidentals, and have always been under
the influence of Rome. Most of them escaped
wholly the Ottoman yoke. They have evolved a
high degree of civilization, as we Westerners
understand that term, and have little except lan-
guage in common with the Serbians, a people that
lived for hundreds of years under the shadow
of the Crescent. It was impossible to expect
that the more cultivated Serbian-speaking peoples
of the Hapsburg Empire should be willing to
play second fiddle to a Balkan people whose man-
ner of life and habits of mind were semi-Oriental.

When the fortunes of war began to point to
an Entente victory in 191 8, it would have been
possible to secure the recognition of a Jugoslav
state, to be formed by the union of the Jugoslav
portions of Austria and Hungary with Serbia.
But the Serbian Government failed to recognize
the barriers of which we have just spoken, and

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

aimed to use the victory as a means of aggrandiz-
ing- Serbia. The new territories were to come
into the existing kingdom without conditions.
Premier Pashitch tried to get the Entente Powers
and the United States to agree to the annexation
of Bosnia by Serbia when the Austro-Hungarian
armies withdrew. In the summer of 1918, when
the Czechoslovak National Council was officially
recognized as trustee of the future Czechoslovak
Government, it was intimated that a similar step
would be taken on behalf of the Jugoslavs if
only Serbia agreed to throw in her lot with
the proposed Jugoslavia. Rumania and Greece
joined the Entente Powers in urging this course
upon the Belgrade Government. Premier Pa-
shitch refused. The golden opportunity was lost ;
for in October Italy declared that she would
countenance no such move. When, with the
break-up of the Dual Monarchy, Agram pro-
claimed the independence of Croatia on October
28, 1 91 8, it was too late to arrange what would
have been feasible in the summer. On Novem-
ber 9 the Belgrade and Agram Governments is-
sued at Geneva a joint declaration to work to-
gether until a constituent assembly, elected by
universal suffrage, should adopt a constitution
for the new states, whose boundaries were as yet
indefinite.

This modus vivendi, accepted at the eleventh

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

hour by Pashitch, might have lasted throughout
the Peace Conference had it not been for the fear
of Italian aggression, which prompted the Agrani
Government to beg for the assistance of the Ser-
bian army to save Laibach and Fiume from
Italian occupation. In taking over the territories
assigned to them by the armistice of November
3, the Italian armies acted with a high hand,
suppressing the Jugoslav national movement
promptly and ruthlessly. Italian nationalism
was being worked up to fever heat by the propa-
ganda to make the Adriatic an Italian lake. The
Dalmatian League at Rome declared that Dal-
matia was to be Italian. D'Annunzio issued an
impassioned appeal for Fiume, the words of
which he soon afterward proved himself able to
translate into actions.

The Agram National Council's hand was
forced. Instead of waiting to arrange on equal
terms with the Belgrade Government the details
of union, as the Declaration of Geneva had pro-
vided, the Council proclaimed, on November 23,
the union of the territories under its control
with the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro.
Three days later a national assembly at Podgo-
ritza deposed King Nicholas and his dynasty and
voted for the union of Montenegro with the new
state. Prince Alexander, as regent, announced

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

the birth of "free and united Jugoslavia" at Bel-
grade on December i, 1918.

When the Jugoslavs appeared with a united
delegation at the Peace Conference, Italy insisted
that its members be acknowledged only as Ser-
bians, acting in the name of the Belgrade Gov-
ernment. The union of the Jugoslav portions of
the Hapsburg Empire with the Kingdom of
Serbia had not been recognized by Italy, or by the
other Entente Powers, for that matter ; 1 and, as
such an event was a thing of the future, to be de-
cided by the Peace Conference, Italy declared that
she would not consent to have decisions antici-
pated or prejudiced by acceptance of the union as
a fait accompli. Throughout the Conference
Italy maintained this uncompromising attitude.

It was after issuing from a conference in
which the future of the Jugoslavs was the prin-
cipal topic that Mr. Lloyd George said that the
peace treaties threatened "to Balkanize Europe."
The full significance of this remark is grasped
when we realize that the Jugoslav cause at Paris

1 The United States, however, owing to the skilful diplomacy
of Dr. Slavko Grouitch, aided powerfully by his American wife,
had recognized the union of the Jugoslavic portions of the de-
funct Hapsburg Empire with Serbia in January, 1919, and
received Dr. Grouitch at Washington as "minister of the King-
dom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes." Throughout the Peace
Conference Jugoslavia had American support, and President
Wilson did not hesitate to risk wrecking the Conference to
protect the Jugoslavs against the territorial greed of Italy.

279

EUROPE SINCE 1918

was not advanced by delegates who presented a
solid front and followed a consistent policy in
pressing their national claims. Pashitch and his
colleagues from Belgrade, dismayed by Italian
opposition at times and at others more interested
in the Banat of Temesvar and Macedonia than
in the Adriatic, held back from whole-hearted
support of Croat and Slovene claims. In their
attitude toward their "redeemed brethren" the
Serbs displayed curiously mixed sentiments. If
one were rash enough to attempt to express the
Serbian feeling in one sentence, he might put it
in this way, that the Serbs possessed, in relation
to the Hapsburg Jugoslavs, a superior military
complex and an inferior cultural complex.

But to be fair to the Serbs one must remember
their recent military achievements and the mar-
tyrdom of the World War. They had put the
Serbian race in a position of commanding the re-
spect of the world and of being listened to at
Paris because of their exploits and their suffer-
ings. Then, too, they had fought for the En-
tente Powers while the rest of the Jugoslavs had
fought for the Central Empires. It meant a
great deal to them to renounce the historic name
of their country and the flag under which they
had fought, and to lose their identity in a new
"Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes."

The change of the red-blue-white flag to a blue-

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

white-red flag was even more of a renunciation.
On the practical side of the question, Premier
Pashitch had to think of two other considera-
tions : Serbia, bled white, risked a new war with
Italy in championing the Croat side of the Fiume
question and the Slovene side of the Istrian ques-
tion; and the Serbians, with a hundred years of
independent existence behind them, risked being
submerged in the new state with its Occidental
and more highly educated Croato-Slovene major-
ity. What leader, under these circumstances,
would not have paused to weigh the alternatives
of Greater Serbia and Jugoslavia ? The dilemma
was all the more distressing because Pashitch
realized that at the best he would have to sacri-
fice half a million Slovenes to Italy and would
thereby incur their enmity for himself and for
the Belgrade Government as well !

In the midst of currents and counter-currents
of sentiment and sound diplomatic common sense,
the Jugoslavs whirled through the mad year of
1919, avoiding a decision as to the precise form
the new state should take. Until the treaties
with Austria and Hungary were signed, the
Jugoslavs concentrated upon the problems de-
manding attention at Paris, which were (1) re-
sisting the pretensions of Italy in Dalmatia and
at the head of the Adriatic; (2) getting as much
territory as possible from Austria, Hungary, and

281

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Bulgaria; and (3) trying to prevent the award of
the Banat of Temesvar to Rumania.

Two problems of minor importance came up:
(1) the repudiation by influential Montenegrins
of the union voted by the Podgoritza assembly;
and (2) fixing a frontier with the Albanians.

The Banat question with Rumania was com-
promised by a Solomonic division of the disputed
territory. As we have seen elsewhere, Jugoslav
ambitions in regard to Albania were thwarted by
the Albanians themselves, whose success in de-
fending their independence was followed by the
intervention of the League of Nations. The
Montenegrin revolt was suppressed. Serbian
claims at the expense of Bulgaria were allowed
in the Treaty of Neuilly. The Treaty of Tri-
anon gave the new state generous frontiers at the
expense of Hungary. The Treaty of St. -Ger-
main provided for a plebiscite in the Klagenfurt
district of Carinthia, which resulted in a victory
for the Austrians. But the Paris Conference
left to direct negotiations between Italy and the
Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes the
fixing of the frontier with Italy.

For eighteen months it looked as if war would
break out between Italians and Jugoslavs. But
the latter were not sufficiently united to make pos-
sible an uncompromising attitude toward the

Italians. In violation of President Wilson's

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

ninth point in the famous Fourteen, the Jugo-
slavs finally agreed to sacrifice a large portion of
the Slovenes, to renounce their claim to Fiume,
and to agree to the incorporation of the Zara dis-
trict and some of the Dalmatian islands in Italy.
This compromise, called the Treaty of Rapallo.
was signed on November 28, 1920. Like other
compromise frontiers in the general settlement
after the World War, the Rapallo arrangement
created an irredentist problem more complicated
and dangerous than the one it was supposed to
solve. Italy was confirmed in the possession of
Istria and secured a frontier in the hinterland
of Trieste and the Isonzo Valley more advan-
tageous than the frontier of the 191 5 secret
Treaty of London. Fiume was made a free state
"in perpetuo." Zara and its hinterland became
an Italian enclave in Dalmatia. The islands of
Cherso and Lussin, with "minor islands and
rocks" off the Istrian Peninsula, went to Italy.
Former Austro-Hungarian subjects were allowed
to opt for Italian nationality, without the obliga-
tion to transfer their domicile outside Jugoslav
territory. Reciprocity for Jugoslavs residing
within the new limits of the Kingdom of Italy
was denied.

A glance at the map will show how great a
blow to the prosperity of the Slovenes and the
Croats was the creation of the Free State of

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

Fiume. The loss of Trieste was serious enough
to the Slovenes; that of Fiume cut them off en-
tirely from the sea; while Fiume, where the
Julian and Dinaric Alps meet, is the logical outlet
for Croatia, Hungary, and Slavonia. Italy jus-
tified her seizure of Fiume (the fiction of a free
state is transparent) on the ground that the ma-
jority^ of the port's inhabitants were Italians. If
the suburb of Susak be counted as part of the
city, even this claim was debatable. But the fact
that Danzig's population was over 90 per cent
pure German did not weigh at Versailles against
the decision to detach Danzig from Germany to
make it an outlet for Poland. Memel was sim-
ilarly taken from Germany to be later awarded
to Lithuania. Here we see the application of two
weights and two measures, in the case of Fiume
against a state created by the Peace Conference
itself ! The moral of most of the decisions made
since 191 8 is that the supreme argument in inter-
national relations is the possession of force.
Taken as a whole, the map of Europe, as redrawn
since 191 8, has been more influenced by the* pos-
session of superior force by its beneficiaries than
any of the territorial readjustments of the nine-
teenth century.

Advantageous as it was, there was a loud out-
cry in Italy against the Treaty of Rapallo, and it
has not yet been fully put into force. As I write

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

these lines the Jugoslavs are vainly endeavoring
in a conference at Abbazia to secure loyal fulfil-
ment of Italian promises and to make conditions
tolerable for the foreign trade of Jugoslavia.

The frontier disputes, entailing the possibility
of war with Italy, Rumania, or Albania, made
necessary the postponement of elections to the
Constituent Assembly until November, 1920.
During the two transitional years a provisional
parliament of an extraordinary character had met
at Belgrade. Its Serbian members were those of
the Skupshtina elected in June, 1914, and the
Croatian members were of the Diet elected under
Hungarian rule in January, 1914; while the Mon-
tenegrin deputies were chosen by the revolution-
ary assembly of Podgoritza in November, 1918.
The other representatives belonged to haphazard
local organizations of non-official character and
doubtful legality.

Internal politics singularly aided the Italians in
holding out for the terms eventually embodied in
the Treaty of Rapallo ; and, none can study tjie
political intrigues of this period without becoming
convinced that many of the Serbians, had it not
been for outside pressure, would have united suc-
cessfully to throw overboard the program of a
Jugoslavia for Pashitch's dream of a Greater
Serbia, with an outlet to the sea at Scutari at the

expense of Albania. Thanks largely to the skill

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

and devotion of M. Vesnitch (Serbian minister
at Paris during the World War and the Peace
Conference), who assumed the premiership a:
a critical moment, the various elements among
the Jugoslavs were brought finally to an agree-
ment by which the election for a Constituent As-
sembly could be held. It was a sign of the weak-
ness of the new state, however, that the non-
Slavic populations were not allowed to vote, al-
though they were about 20 per cent of the elec-
torate. Premier Vesnitch realized that it was
going to be difficult enough to form a working
assembly of Jugoslavs alone, without the added
confusion of alien elements !

In Croatia, the peasant leader Raditch, who
had been in prison for advocating a republican
and federal form of government, was elected with
fifty of his followers ; while the Croat and Slovene
Clericals were equally opposed to centralization.
The Communists, also for a republic and decen-
tralization, returned fifty-eight members. In the
confusion of many parties, none holding a ma-
jority, the veteran Pashitch became premier once
more and began to rule with a heavy hand and
by skilful intrigues. He was confronted with
the passive resistance of the great majority of
Croats and Slovenes. The fifty members of
Raditch's Croatian party followed the Irish Na-
tionalist example and refused to take their seats

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

at Belgrade. Pashitch got rid of the fifty-eight
Communists by expelling them.

The attempt of ex-Emperor Karl to regain the
Hungarian throne at the end of March, 1921, the
failure of all efforts from outside and inside to
overthrow the Soviet Government in Russia, and
the recrudescence of Mohammedan strength
through the successes of the Turkish Nationalist
movement acted as a sobering influence upon the
Jugoslavs, who .realized that their newly won
liberties would be jeopardized if there were po-
litical anarchy at home. Dangers from abroad
gave Premier Pashitch the temporary support of
the most influential elements, who preferred a
centralized Serbia to disintegration or Commu-
nism. The constitution, providing for a single
chamber, was finally adopted on June 28, 1921,
which was supported by all the Jugoslavs with
the exception of the Croatians and Slovenes.

King Peter died in August, 1921, and was suc-
ceeded by Alexander, who had been acting as
regent during all the period of internal confusion
since 1914. A marriage was arranged for Alex-
ander with Princess Marie of Rumania, whose
older sister had married the Crown Prince of
Greece. The wedding took place in June, 1922,
and was the occasion of a demonstration of
friendship with Rumania and a strengthening of

the defensive alliance of Poland, Czechoslovakia,

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

Rumania, and Jugoslavia against any revision of
the treaties of St. -Germain and Trianon.

King Alexander played a role during the
World War that endeared him to his people, and
he has entered upon a task of uniting the Jugo-
slavia peoples with a great deal of personal pres-
tige. The Rumanian marriage alliance is pop-
ular, because the Jugoslavs see in it a guarantee
against a new war in the Balkans. For all that,
the Monarchy will be a really constructive force
only if Croatians and Slovenes are regarded as
equal partners in the new country, held together
(as Austria was held together) by common at-
tachment to the crown. When the people amal-
gamate in such a way as to form one country,
Jugoslavia may become a republic. The attitude
toward the monarchy is one of personal affection
and esteem for the present sovereign, and of con-
viction that the monarchy has still a useful part
to fulfil in developing and consolidating the po-
litical life of the country. But the ideal of the
Jugoslavs outside the old kingdom is a republic.
One might hazard the opinion that republican-
ism is the inevitable tendency in all Balkan coun-
tries. I had the privilege of being present at the
marriage festivities in Belgrade, and found that
other observers of contemporary Balkan history
shared my feeling that the King and Queen of

Serbia are simply convenient symbols, internally

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

and internationally, of the period of transition
and amalgamation through which the new Jugo-
slavia is passing.

The General Election in April, 1923, however,
indicated that the danger of internal disruption
has not yet passed, and that some form of feder-
alism will have to be worked out if Jugoslavia is
to hope to become a country with representative
institutions. The new Chamber contains thir-
teen parties, several of which are divided by per-
sonal antagonism among their leaders. The
Radicals, who represent national Serbian tradi-
tions and whose policy is centralization held
ninety-two seats out of 417 in 1920, and in the
recent election secured 109 seats in the reduced
Chamber of 313. They are the largest single
party, but even if the Serbian Democrats united
with them they would still be in a minority. The
Democrats are divided among themselves on the
issue of centralization versus federation. Neither
Radicals nor Democrats obtained a single seat
in Croatia or Slovenia. The most remarkable
gain was that of Raditch's Croatian peasant party.
In 1920 Raditch had fifty seats out of 417; in
1923 he has seventy out of 313. The twenty-two
Slovene Clericals and the two Montenegrins are
also Federalists. The disappearance of the Com-
munists and Republicans and the remarkable
shrinking of Agrarians indicate that social and

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

economic questions are, for the time being, sub-
ordinated to that of the question whether the
country can be molded into a homogeneous whole
or whether there shall be three autonomous states
united in a triune kingdom. The issue is squarely
before the country; for when the Chamber as-
sembled Premier Pashitch discovered that by no
combination could he secure a working majority
over the Croatian, Slovenian, and other Feder-
alists.

The situation is by no means desperate. Much
that one sees now to condemn will disappear with
a little more experience and the mellowing influ-
ence of time. It took the United States six years
for the thirteen original units to agree upon a
modus vivendi, and from 1789 to 1865 to work
out the problem of national unity. In sizing up
the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,
we must distinguish between inherent weaknesses
and those that are the result of lack of time or
experience. Most of the difficulties in adminis-
tration and politics arise from newness of the
association and the inability to find trained men
for governmental posts. Local antagonisms must
be overcome, and conflicting local interests recon-
ciled. As soon as railways and ports are con-
structed and the first shock of marriage over-
come, there is no reason to believe that these
peoples, occupying rich territories and bound to-

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

gether by the ties of blood and language, cannot
bridge the cultural gulf that separates them and
work out together a better future than they en-
joyed separately in the past. But there can be no
question of assimilation of one element by the
other; there must be amalgamation.

The external dangers and difficulties are of
another order and will not easily be overcome un-
less the Jugoslavic peoples are allowed to work
out their own destiny.

Now that Bulgaria is completely disarmed,
that Greece has her hands full for years to come,
and that Rumania manifests strikingly her in-
tention of remaining on friendly terms with
'Serbia, the large standing army and the alliance
with the other Succession States of the Hapsburg
Empire can only mean that the unity of the terri-
tories now included in Jugoslavia has not been
achieved by the will of the peoples included within
the frontiers of this new state. It is an indica-
tion of the fundamental weakness of the new Eu-
rope of the Paris treaties. The new states were
given the advantage every time when it was a
question of strategic or economic frontiers; and
while the principle of self-determination was in-
voked to create the new states, it was denied when
the new states demanded frontiers to suit their
convenience or when they were encouraged by
the interests of one or the other of the Entente

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Powers to ask for frontier districts to which they
had not aspired. Jugoslavia suffered at the hands
of Italy, which, being a big power, made her
frontiers as she chose. But Jugoslavia was al-
lowed to treat the vanquished states as she herself
had been treated by Italy.

The frontiers of Jugoslavia are a source of
weakness and danger, like those of Rumania,
» Czechoslovakia, and Poland. If the real interests
of these peoples had been considered, and not the
policies of great powers, more permanent frontier
lines could have been traced. But the roles of
Austria and Hungary have simply been reversed.
The four Succession States are compelled to
guard their frontiers arms in hand, and are sad-
dled with alien border populations by the million,
which can be governed only by military intimida-
tion. Thus the old European evils of irredentist
agitation, of harsh treatment of minorities, of
government by military force, have not been done
away with.

The Treaty of Neuilly increased materially the
already large number of Bulgarians under Ser-
bian rule. Macedonian mountaineers, comitadjis
by profession, have not accepted Serbian over-
lordship and are waging against the Serbs the
guerrilla warfare that baffled the Turks and
proved so costly to them. The Macedonian

League is giving the Serbs much trouble and

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EVOLUTION OF JUGOSLAVIA

anxiety. In a comminatory note on this subject,
one finds M. Nintchitch, the minister of foreign
affairs, using to Bulgaria the same argument and
employing the same threats Austria used and em-
ployed against Serbia, when it was a question of
the activities of the Narodny Obrana in Bosnia.
We remember that Austria asserted that these
activities were engineered from Serbian territory,
and it was a summons to stop them that led to
the World War. And now Jugoslavia, alarmed
over the spirit of rebellion among her Bulgarian
subjects in Macedonia, talked to Bulgaria as Ser-
bia used to object to Austria talking to her !

After four years of anxious effort Jugoslav
statesmen began to see the danger of having hos-
tile neighbors and constant frontier disputes when
internal questions were still far from being set-
tled. A sensible attitude was adopted toward
Italy and Bulgaria. Stubbornness in the west
and intimidation in the east were abandoned as
profitless. In the spring of 1923 the Jugoslavs
got together with the Italians at Abbazia (and
later Rome) and with the Bulgarians at Nish.
Moot questions were frankly thrashed out. With
Italy the problem of Porto Baros, on the coast
near the frontier with the Free State of Fiume,
was solved by mutual compromise. With Bul-
garia it was decided that practical measures should
be taken by both states to minimize the incon-

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veniences and political agitation of comitadji
raids. Bulgaria was to be allowed to conscript
frontier guards, and Serbia was granted the right
to pursue comitadjis on Bulgarian territory.

The debacle of Greece in Asia Minor, the dra-
matic return of the Turks to Thrace, and the
sudden overthrow of the Stambulisky regime in
Bulgaria compelled the new Jugoslav Govern-
ment to make a military demonstration in Mace-
donia in June, 1923. From Nish to Strumnitza
troops were concentrated. The Serbians inti-
mated at Lausanne to the Turks and at Sofia to
the Bulgarians that no move to modify or upset
the Treaty of Neuilly would be tolerated. In
view of what has happened at Lausanne, how-
ever, it is doubtful if this attitude can be main-
tained. When the Turks successfully resisted
the Treaty of Sevres, they made a precedent and
set an example for the other conquered nations.
The Bulgarian revolution is the logical result of
the success of the Angora Nationalist movement.
Jugoslavia is not yet secure, in so far as the Bal-
kans are concerned, in her fruits of victory.

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CHAPTER XV
GREATER RUMANIA

WE have three groups of minor nations in
Central and Eastern Europe: those
whose emancipation or extension of
frontiers is at the expense of the Central Em-
pires; those whose emancipation or extension of
frontiers is at the expense of Russia; and the
Balkan States, completing their emancipation
from Turkey and establishing new frontiers at
the expense of each other. Czechoslovakia be-
longs to the first category; Poland and Lithuania
to the first and second categories; Finland and
the Baltic States to the second category; the
Ukraine also to the second category, although her
claim to Eastern Galicia, denied by the Supreme
Council, would put her in the first category as
well ; Jugoslavia to the first and third categories ;
Greece and Bulgaria and Albania to the third
category. Rumania has the unique distinction
of being in all three groups. And the factors and
conditions in the creation of Greater Rumania are
different from those that attend the resurrection
or enlargement of the other minor states. Our

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small Allies (and Austria, Hungary, and Bul-
garia) face the general problems of the groups to
which they belong. Rumania faces all the prob-
lems of all the groups.

Like Greece and Serbia, Rumania is confronted
with a complete and radical remolding of the old
political organism and a transformation of her
social and economic life by the incorporation of
"unredeemed" elements too large and too differ-
ent culturally to assimilate ; her agrarian and elec-
toral problems are similar to those of Hungary;
with Poland, she must face Bolshevism or make
concessions to the irredentism of Russian subject
races or find herself later forced to choose be-
tween Russia and Germany ; she has frontier as-
pirations in common with Bulgaria and Italy
against Serbia ; she must resist the conspiracy of
Great Britain and France to substitute themselves
for Germany as her economic suzerain; and, as
her only outlet is through the Dardanelles, she
cannot remain indifferent to the disposition of
Constantinople.

In common with all the races of southeastern
Europe, the Rumanians had their independence
and their political unity destroyed by the Turks
centuries before the awakening of what we call
"national consciousness." When they tried to
take advantage of the decay of the Ottoman Em-
pire to reconstitute a state in the modern sense of

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GREATER RUMANIA

that word, i. e., by bringing together into one
political organism the regions where the majority
of the people spoke the same language and felt the
ties of blood and common interests, they faced im-
placable enemies in the empires of Austria and
Russia. The policy of the Hapsburgs and Ro-
manoffs was to extend their own frontiers at the
expense of the Ottoman Empire. The resurrec-
tion of the Christian races subject to Turkey into
political units was opposed by both empires, be-
cause each believed that the other would control
the new state. Great Britain and France, and
later Germany and Italy, adopted the same policy
for the same reason. Up to 1880, the Occidental
powers feared Russian control of the Balkans.
They did not want the Slavs to have an outlet on
the Mediterranean. During the generation pre-
ceding the World War, France — and later Great
Britain — shifted their opposition from Russia to
Austria. Where they had worried about the
Romanoffs, they now feared the Hohenzollerns.
Unified Germany was gaining control of the
Hapsburg Empire to further her Drang nach
Osten.

But the motives actuating Balkan policy did
not change. All the Balkan States, and Rumania
especially, were potential factors in upsetting the
European balance of power. Hence they must be'
kept as small and powerless as possible, for fear

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of disturbing the peace of Europe. Irredentism,
whether the agitation for extending frontiers ,vas
directed against Mohammedan Turkey or Chris-
tain Russia and Austria-Hungary was frowned
upon. To prevent the Balkan States from form-
ing an alliance to secure their national unity, the
great powers arranged frontiers at Paris in 1856
and at Berlin in 1878 in such a way as to kindle
the animosity of one Balkan race against the
other. The Balkan races were not consulted in
the drawing up of frontiers. They were not
brought together and asked to settle their own
differences by mutual compromises, with the great
powers abstaining from interference. The same
policy was followed at Paris in 1919. It bids
fair to have the same results.

There is this difference, however, between the
Congress of Berlin and the Conference of Paris.
In 1919 the small nations protested more effec-
tively against their exclusion from debates and
their non-participation in decisions affecting their
interests. They had taken advantage of the col-
lapse of Austria-Hungary and Russia to occupy
"unredeemed" territories. Rumania led the
others in defying the Big Four. Refusing to
abide by the decrees of a conference in which she
had no voice, Rumania went ahead and formed
her enlarged state as she wanted it. Only in a
portion of the Banat of Temesvar and at the

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GREATER RUMANIA

mouth of the Maros River are the Rumanians not
under military control of Greater Rumania.

Most plausible have been the inspired articles
from P-aris condemning the intractability of Ru-
mania. Rumania violated the terms of the
armistice between the Allies and Hungary.
Her forces occupying Budapest acted like high-
waymen. The presence of a French army alone
kept the Rumanians from overrunning a
wholly Serbian portion of the Banat of Tem-
esvar. Saved from the Austro-German yoke
by Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United
States, the Rumanians have shown their in-
gratitude, by refusing to abide by the wise
just, and impartial decisions of the Supreme
Council. They lay claim to purely Hungarian
territory. They give evidence of bad faith and
intolerance by not wanting to accept provisions
in the Treaty of St. -Germain for the protection
of racial and religious minorities. These are the
charges. But before we pass judgment ought
we not to hear the other side of the case and to
examine the internal and external policy of
Greater Rumania? What are the problems of
Rumania as the Rumanians see them?

At the Peace Conference Premier Bratianu
claimed as the component parts of Greater Ru-
mania ( i ) the kingdom of Rumania as it was in
1914, (2) the province of Bessarabia, formerly
belonging to Russia, (3) the Austrian province

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

of Bukowina, and (4) the portion of Hungary
known as Transylvania, the Maramouresh and
Crishana regions, and the Banat of Temesvar.
The greater part of the new frontiers claimed is
clearly marked by great waterways, the Dniester,
the Danube, and the Theiss. The Rumanians
admit that these frontiers give them 250,000 Ser-
bians in the angle between the Theiss and the
Danube, a partly Hungarian population in the
lower valley of the Maros, and many Bulgarians
and Turks in the Dobrudja region taken from
Bulgaria in 191 3. But they argue that 100,000
Rumanians in Bulgarian territory and 300,000
Rumanians in Serbian territory on the right bank
of the Danube offset Bulgarians and Serbians in-
corporated into Rumania. They point out, also,
that more than 100,000 Rumanians will remain to
Russia between the Dniester and the Bug. As
for the Hungarians, if the frontier is drawn on
strictly ethnographical lines, an impossible eco-
nomic situation would be created, because of the
loss of the means of exit by natural waterways
and of the control of canals and railways.

Taken as a whole, the Rumanian claims were as
legitimate as those put forth by any other coun-
try at the Paris Conference. The National Coun-
cil of Bessarabia declared its reunion with Ruma-
nia on April 9, 1918; a General Congress of
Bukowina (including the Poles and Germans)

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GREATER RUMANIA

adopted a similar resolution on November 28,
1 918; and on December 1, 1918, a General As-
sembly of elected representatives at Alba-Julia
declared the union of Transylvania and the Banat
of Temesvar "and the Rumanian territories of
Hungary" with the kingdom of Rumania. This
act of union was ratified on January 8, 191 9, by a
General Assembly of the "Saxons of Transyl-
vania." By two royal decrees King Ferdinand
accepted the administrative control of these terri-
tories and admitted to the Rumanian cabinet min-
isters without portfolio to represent them. The
Peace Conference was confronted with a fait ac-
compli.

The Big ^Bur and the Supreme Council that
followed them did not contest Rumania's right to
Transylvania and to the larger portions of Buko-
wina and the Banat of Temesvar. These had
been promised by the secret treaty of 1916.
Since the principle of the conference was strictly
vae victis, the question of a revision of the Bul-
garian boundary of 191 3 did not come up. But
the powers were afraid to say anything about Bes-
sarabia. That its inclusion in Rumania was in
accordance with the principles for which they had
fought did not bother them. For a whole year
our peacemakers played a disgusting game of
duplicity with Rumania in the Bessarabian ques-
tion, the proofs of which were in the hands of

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

Premier Bratianu as early as April. It is dis-
tasteful to have to say so, but since we have not
minced words with Rumania why should she
mince words with us?

The President of the United States and the
Premiers of France, Great Britain, and Italy did
not discourage Rumania's aspirations because
they wanted to use the Rumanians to fight the
Bolsheviki. And while they were "stringing"
Premier Bratianu they secretly promised Ad-
miral Kolchak and General Denikin that the fu-
ture of Bessarabia should be decided by the Rus-
sians themselves. This was on a par with the
promise made by the French representatives at
Kiev to Ukrainia in 19 18. On November 1,
1919, Rumania finally lost the last vestige of con-
fidence in the good faith of her big allies ; and she
formally notified the Supreme Council of the an-
nexation of Bessarabia. God helps those who
help themselves. Since Cavour, statesmen of all
small countries have learned in their dealings with
the great powers that so long as one looks upon
them as Dives crumbs and crumbs alone fall from
the table. The union of Bessarabia with Ru-
mania was approved by the Supreme Council in
March, 1920, after the collapse of the Russian
counter-revolutionary movements.

The Entente Powers acted as a moderating in-
fluence in dealing with the territorial claims of

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GREATER RUMANIA

Rumania against Hungary and Serbia. As re-
gards Hungary, the Rumanians admitted them-
selves that a fair frontier was exceedingly difficult
to establish. The Hungarian islands in the east-
ern part of Transylvania gave them a larger Mag-
yar population than they wanted ; and, unlike the
Poles, the Rumanians realized the danger of an-
nexing alien border districts. Between Ruma-
nians and Hungarians the bitterness is not so
great as between Poles and Germans or between
Poles and Russians. The boundary finally agreed
upon by the Entente commission gave Rumania a
far more advantageous frontier than she had
either ethnographic or economic right to. But
Hungary is so self-supporting a country agricul-
turally that the loss of provinces does not cause
the hardships and force the lower standard of
living that Germany and Austria are suffering.

The frontier dispute with Serbia has been ad-
justed, but to the satisfaction of neither state.
The Banat of Temesvar is a little country lying
north of the Danube from a point above Belgrade
east to the Iron Gates. The Theiss River, run-
ning due south into the Danube, separates it from
the former Eacs-Bodro province of Hungary.
In the angle between the Theiss and the Danube,
the Serbian-speaking population overflows both
rivers and penetrates for many miles into the
Banat. Farther east, the Rumanian population

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has overflowed south of the Danube for fifty miles
in the Timok Valley and in the extreme north-
western corner of Bulgaria. When the Serbians
advanced their claim to a portion of the Banat,
disregarding the natural river boundaries, the
Rumanians countered with the statement that
there would still be more Rumanians in Serbia, in
territory contiguous to Rumania, than Serbians
in Rumania, if the entire Banat should be
awarded to Rumania.

The Theiss and the Danube are natural fron-
tiers. Either the Danube is a boundary or it is
not. If it is not, the ethnographical argument
cuts both ways. But the Supreme Council, in
order to appease the Jugoslavs, took their side
against Rumania and divided the Banat. The
river from which the Banat takes its name, the
canals, and the railway reach the Danube and
Theiss through territory awarded to Serbia. In
the hinterland are the richest coal and iron re-
gions of the old Kingdom of Hungary. The
short-sighted, self-centered diplomacy^of the Big-
Four did not behave with real friendship for Ser-
bia nor with regard for permanent peace in the
Balkans. The principle applied was the exact
opposite of the one used in deciding frontier ques-
tions between Italy and Serbia. One cannot es-
cape from the conclusion that the underlying
motive was what had always guided the great

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GREATER RUMANIA

powers in their Balkan diplomacy, to limit one
another's influence and to prevent the Balkan
States from arriving at a direct compromise, thus
keeping troubled waters in which to fish.

The most serious quarrel between Rumania and
the Entente Powers was over the method of draw-
ing up the Treaties of St.-Germain and Trianon,
and over certain of their stipulations regarding
protection of minorities and economic privileges.
Writers who took their cue from the statesmen of
the great powers, including those of our own coun-
try, gave the public a persistently unfair and de-
natured explanation of Rumania's attitude on
these questions. There was a bitter background
of experience behind the Rumanians when they
refused to accept the renewal of the Berlin clauses
concerning the protection of minorities. At Ber-
lin they had offered to grant full citizenship to
Jews if Russia would assume a similar obligation.
It was dangerous to give citizenship to immigrants
and children of immigrants automatically so long
as Russia continued to oppress the Jews. In a
few years Rumania would have been swamped.
In 1917, when the old regime disappeared in Rus-
sia, citizenship was voted to native Jews of Ru
mania. They were enfranchised; a renewal of
the Berlin stipulation's and the making of a new
contract with the powers were unne-cessary. The
minorities in -the new territories were protected

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

by the provisions in the Acts of Union, which had
been presented to the Peace Conference. Why
should Rumania put her head into the noose by
signing an annex with the big powers which would
enable them to find a pretext at any time to black-
mail Rumania for economic concessions by stir-
ring up trouble?

To call the Anglo-French bluff and to prove
that there was an ulterior motive not connected
with anxiety for the fate of minorities in the ob-
jectionable clauses of the Treaty of St. -Germain
and its annex, Rumania offered to accept pledges
in regard to both Jewish and Christian minorities,
if the contract was to be between Rumania and
the League of Nations and if all the members of
the League of Nations, including the great pow-
ers, were willing to make similar contracts. This
proposal was putting into concrete form, to test
it, the war aim of Great Britain, as phrased by
Sir Edward Grey, that all nations should be given
identical opportunities, irrespective of size, to
work out their own salvation in their own way.

When the Supreme Council received from its
agents the analysis of the Pan-Rumanian General
Election, they saw that the people of Greater Ru-
mania were determined not to agree to any in-
fringement of national sovereignty. Unwilling
to have Rumania stay out of the League of Na-
tions, the Supreme Council gave in. The lines

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GREATER RUMANIA

and the preamble referring to the engagements
imposed upon Rumania by the Treaty of Berlin
were struck out of the Treaty of Neuilly. Article
LX of the Treaty of St.-Germain was emascu-
lated. The annex concerning minorities was
modified, and now became a free-will undertaking,
in accordance with the Acts of Union of the new
provinces, and entailed an obligation from the
Rumanian Government only to her own peoples
and not to the principal Allied and Associated
Powers. As for the Jews, the annex recognized
that the amendments of 191 7 to the Rumanian
constitution covered their protection.

General Coanda signed the amended treaties in
Paris on December 10, 1919. Thus ended in a
notable victory the rebellion of Rumania begun,
in common with the other minor states, at the
second plenary session of the Peace Conference.
Rumania avoided remaining a satellite. She
would henceforth have to dance to no great pow-
er's piping. It was a victory for all the smaller
states in resisting the hope of the World War
victors to use the small Allies for their own polit-
ical ends and commercial profits.

Rumania, of course, like other countries, is far
from blameless in her dealings with minorities.
Less than half of the several millions taken from
Hungary and given to Rumania by the Treaty
of Trianon are of Rumanian origin. The Mag-

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

yar and Saxon minorities of Transylvania live
largely in the cities. Their culture is a thousand
years old. Most of the commerce and industry
is in their hands, and their holdings in land are
out of proportion to their numbers. Most of the
Rumanians, on the other hand, are farmers and
herdsmen. The Rumanian Government has sim-
ply turned the tables and is doing what the
Hungarian Government used to do and what the
Germans did in Alsace-Lorraine, striking at the
minorities through their educational institutions
by trying to force the exclusive use of the Ru-
manian language in the schools. This is causing
hardships and unrest of a serious character, and
it remains to be seen whether it will be successful.
The difficulty is the same as in all the Succession
States of the Hapsburg Empire. The new mas-
ters are culturally inferior and politically less ex-
perienced than the former masters who are now
at their mercy.

Before the World War the Kingd om of Ru-
mania was the most populous and the wealthiest
of the minor states of eastern Europe. But it
was the most backward in democratic evolution.
Political and economic conditions were more like
those in Russia than in any other European coun-
try. Sixty per cent of the population over seven
years could neither read nor write — about the
same percentage as in Poland. Suffrage was ex-

308

GREATER RUMANIA

ercised through an elaborate system of three elec-
toral colleges, which kept the power in the hands
of the large landowners and the small educated
element. )( The common people had no voice in the
government. Conservatives and Liberals, with
scarcely any distinction in their policies, controlled
Parliament in the interest of a very small class.
About half of the cultivable land was in the
hands of less than forty-five hundred proprietors.
Forests and pasturage were even more monopo-
lized.

The crushing defeat of Rumania by the Cen-
tral Powers and the Russian revolution, calami-
ties as they seemed to be at the time, were really
blessings in disguise. There was no hope for the
Kingdom of Rumania, much less of realizing the
dream of Greater Rumania, unless radical changes
were made in the political and economic organiza-
tion of the Kingdom. The people of the King-
dom had to be given a big inducement to stand
by the dynasty and the Government. The Ru-
manians of Hungary would never cast in their
lot with the "mother-country" that had failed to
free them unless the land and suffrage questions
were settled. Bessarabia was called by Petrograd
to share in the land redistribution of New Rus-
sia. The Rumanian Parliament at Jassy voted
the three reforms essential to the rehabilitation
of Rumania. To keep the support of their own

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

people and of the "unredeemed" Rumanians, con-
stitutional changes were made in establishing uni-
versal and equal suffrage and breaking up estates
of over five hundred hectares. To conciliate pub-
lic opinion outside of Rumania, citizenship was
extended to native-born Jews.

In the Acts of Union, Transylvania, the Banat
of Temesvar, Bukowina, and Bessarabia entered
Greater Rumania on the basis of universal suf-
frage, land distribution, and citizenship to Jews
and racial minorities. But thev put the limit of
estates at one hundred hectares, and stipulated
that they should keep their local autonomy.

The population of the new state is nearly
doubled. From about 9,000,000 Rumania finds
herself with more than 16,000,000. The addition
of Bessarabia has brought 2,000,000 new citizens
whose preponderant Rumanian element had never
enjoyed political and economic conditions very
different from those that prevailed in the old
Kingdom. But the Rumanians of Hungary have
had a radically different background. Taken as
a whole, they are far more advanced than the
Rumanians of the Kingdom. Having had to
struggle for centuries against Magyarization,
they fought for a hold on the land and for control
of industries. They have been widely trained in
the importance of exercising suffrage as a means
of combating the Magyars. Their language and

310

GREATER RUMANIA

primary education and their church have been
weapons essential to their separate existence and
the growth of national feeling. Hence it is that
with universal suffrage, which they alone know
how to use, the Rumanians of Hungary threatened
to become the dominant element in Greater Ru-
mania. Their leaders do not belong to the aris-
tocracy but come directly from the soil. From
the moment of their entry into the Parliament of
Bucharest, they dispossessed the old politicians,
who were servants of the landed aristocracy.
They demanded the removal of the capital from
the Kingdom to Transylvania, suggesting Kron-
stadt (Brasso).

When the first Parliament of Greater Rumania
assembled, the old politicians of the Kingdom
tried to get King Ferdinand to appoint a premier
and approve the formation of a cabinet without
regard to the parliamentary majority. Jonescu
and Averescu signified their willingness to "save
Rumania." Their plea was that the actual con-
stitutional union had not yet taken place, and that
Rumania was in a transitional stage, without defi-
nite frontiers and without international recogni-
tion. Until the treaties with the defeated coali-
tion were ratified by the Allies, and until some
general policy was adopted by the victorious coali-
tion in regard to Russia, the Ottoman Empire,
and common financial questions, they argued that

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

the new Parliament was not in a position to func-
tion constitutionally as the law-making body of
the new Rumanian political organism. In the
Acts of Union, did not the Rumanians of Hungary
and Austria and Russia expressly stipulate their
local autonomy? The bases of the new Ruma-
nian state and the authority of its united Parlia-
ment had yet to be worked out. The thesis was
plausible and would have won the day for the
time being, had it not been for differences of opin-
ion among the political leaders of the old King-
dom. There was also the fear shared by all that
the Rumanians could not hold out against the
Supreme Council in the matter of the treaties un-
less the new Parliament was regarded as consti-
tutional and authoritative, not transitional.

Considerations of foreign policy prevailed.
Premier Bratianu resigned. He was succeeded
by M. Vaida, a Transylvanian Nationalist, who
could claim the support of the parliamentary ma-
jority. Premier Vaida was a deputy in the Hun-
garian Parliament at the beginning of the war.
His whole life had been spent in fighting against
government by a small clique. To emancipate
his fellow-Transylvanians from exploitation at
the hands of the Magyar aristocracy, he made
himself the advocate of universal suffrage, equal
and secret ; ownership of land by those who work
it; exclusion of foreign capital and foreign man-

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GREATER RUMANIA

agement in the industrial and mining enterprises
and in transportation; communal ownership of
forests and mines ; local autonomy ; and universal
compulsory education. One readily sees how
leaders of subject races, in the fight against a
dominant nation, must be radicals and appeal to
the common people against vested interests.
Where there is a racial question, the nationalism
of the oppressed race is inevitably radicalism.
Alas for the hopes of the politicians who espoused
irredentism and believed that they would be simply
extending their field of action! Alas for the
hopes of the statesmen of the great powers, who
saw in irredentism the means of destroying ene-
mies and creating new fields for commercial and
industrial exploitation in small states dependent
upon them ! The easily controlled Parliament of
the former Kingdom of Rumania was gone for-
ever, now that millions of new voters were added
to the electorate — voters whose background had
been different for centuries, and who had united
with the state whose citizenship they had assumed
by agreements containing definite stipulations.

Every nationalist movement has as its corol-
lary the effort to oust foreigners from concessions
and economic privileges secured in the days of
absolutism and weakness. The Rumanians did
not wait to begin the fight to rid their country of
economic servitude to the great powers. Ger-

3i3

EUROPE SINCE 1918

many had lost all her treaty privileges of ante-
bellum days, and the new treaties provided for
the cancellation of concessions and contracts of
German and Austro-Hungarian subjects. Of
course it was the intention of the victors to sub-
stitute themselves for the enemies and rivals they
had ousted, and secret agreements to that effect
were concluded. But New Rumania is deter-
mined to put a stop to the old practice of foreign
enterprises protected by diplomatic treaties.

In 1923 the struggle is still going on against
the old-fashioned aims of foreign capital, with
governmental backing, to bind smaller nations
hand and foot. Premier Vaida did not last long,
because of the inevitable disruptive influences at
work in coalitions. But the old oligarchy was
equally unable to remain in power. When the
Constituent Assembly was elected in 1920 there
was so much intimidation and corruption that
the minority parties began to cry out against its
right to frame and adopt a constitution. The
Constituent Assembly finally voted the new consti-
tution, under the skilful majority leadership of
the veteran Bratiano, who had once more become
premier. The final vote was 225 for and 122
against ; but the Opposition, denying the legality
of the Assembly, declared the constitution unac-
ceptable unless revised. Disorders broke out in
Bucharest and the provinces. Premier Bratiano

3i4

GREATER RUMANIA

at once declared martial law, and the King signed
the new constitution. On April 4, 1923, occurred
the first serious rioting in Bucharest in which the
troops fired upon the people. The minority par-
ties, who gained much strength from the new
parts of Rumania, complained that the constitu-
tion deprives minorities of political rights and
centralizes the powers of the Government in an
oppressive manner.1

Rumania is the prey of internal political in-
stability, in which agrarian reform, adjustment to
the different conditions heretofore existing in the
new provinces, the constant menace from Russia,
the revival of Hungary, and the new crisis in the
question of the Straits have all played their part.
The problems and tendencies of Greater Rumania,
so clearly posed and defined at the moment of her
birth, have become obscured for the moment in the
effort of the country to find internal political sta-
bility and to guard against dangers menacing it

1 My Rumanian friends have sent me lengthy criticisms of
the new constitution. Their objections seem to me not well
taken ; for their complaints are rather against the methods used
in framing and securing the adoption of the constitution rather
than on the contents of the document. The truth of the matter
is that in Rumania as in Jugoslavia the new provinces are unwill-
ing to lose their identity by being incorporated, without safe-
guards of local autonomy, in Greater Rumania and Greater
Serbia. This same tendency I found last year among the Greeks
of Asia Minor and Constantinople, and the Athens Government
would have had troubles similar to those that are confronting the
Belgrade and Bucharest Governments, had their military efforts
against Turks ended in the liberation of Ottoman Greeks.

315

EUROPE SINCE 1918

from the east and the west. The Russian danger
has been a beneficial thing in one way : it has acted
as a deterrent in the internal political strife.

But insecurity has played havoc with Ruma-
nian finances. Her money has depreciated more
than that of defeated Bulgaria. And yet Ruma-
nia hesitates to contract a large foreign loan, fear-
ing that conditions will be imposed of the kind she
successfully resisted at Paris in 1919. So her
wealth and mineral oil and cereals are not saving
her from following the path of other European
states large and small, a path that is leading to
bankruptcy.

316

CHAPTER XVI
THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

THE Treaty of Trianon, signed on June 4,
1920, destroyed a kingdom that had ex-
isted for a thousand years by allotting two
thirds of the territory and population of the his-
toric realm to Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Jugo-
slavia, and Austria. Before the collapse of the
Central Empires Hungary had a population of
about twenty-two millions, nearly half of whom
were Hungarian. After the treaty the popula-
tion was reduced to seven and a half millions, in
the proportion: Hungarian, 88.4 per cent; Ger-
man, 7; Slovakian, 2.2; and about 110,000 Cro-
atians, Rumanians, and Serbians. In order to
accomplish the liberation of subject nationalities,
Hungarians were put under foreign yoke, all
(with the exception of part of those given to Ru-
mania) in contiguous territories, as follows:

Subject to Czechoslovakia 1,084,000

Subject to Rumania 1,705,000

Subject to Jugoslavia 458,000

Subject to Austria 80,000

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

The Paris Conference, on the recommendation
of military experts, changed the boundary be-
tween Austria and Hungary, south of the Dan-
ube, in order to protect Pressburg (Bratislava),
given to Czechoslovakia for a port. There was
the added motive of creating a breach between
the former allies. The large number of Hun-
garians put under Czechoslovakia was due to two
considerations: to afford the new state a long
Danube frontier; and to make possible an En-
tente airplane and military base close to the cap-
ital of Hungary. An ethnographic frontier with
Rumania was rejected because of the promises
to Rumania during the war to induce her to in-
tervene on the side of the Entente Powers. The
Czechoslovak frontier was carried across the Car-
pathians to include Ruthenia, and nearly half a
million Hungarians were transferred to Jugoslav
nationality, so that Czechoslovakia, Rumania,
and Jugoslavia might have common frontiers and
railway communications in friendly territory.

The Entente Powers had fought to liberate
subject races, not simply to give border popula-
tions a change of masters.. But the new coun-
tries needed strategic frontiers and economic re-
sources. Therefore their liberation necessitated
the slavery of one third of the former master
race to the former subject races. Defeated Hun-
gary saw the principle of self-determination in-

318

THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

voked in behalf of other peoples for the purpose
of despoiling her, but ignored when for economic
or strategic reasons the liberated peoples needed
territories inhabited by Hungarians. It was a
case of turning the tables. Might once more
made right. The Hungarians were given a dose
of their own medicine. The outcry against the
Treaty of Trianon, whose terms were announced
just after Hungary had passed through the Bela
Kun Communist reign of terror and the occupa-
tion and pillage of Budapest by the Rumanians,
was universal. But the vanquished Magyars
were as powerless to protest effectively against
the Treaty of Trianon as the Germans had been
a year earlier to reject the Treaty of Versailles.

Hungary lost most of her hydraulic power,
forests, paper-mills, cereals, potatoes, honey, silk-
cocoons, coal, and everything else that went to
make up the economic life of this Danubian re-
gion centered at Budapest. In the era of steam-
power and world markets, Hungary, like other
states, had developed as a whole, each region fit-
ting in a scheme of things that made the different
parts dependent upon one another. Commerce
and manufacturers were concentrated at Buda-
pest, which was equipped with transportation,
warehouses, and banks to handle the business of
the entire country. Fiume had been the common
port for all the Hungarian provinces. Now in

3i9

EUROPE SINCE 1918

her shorn state, cut off from access to the sea,
and with the former subject regions raising
tariff-walls against her, what was left of Hun-
gary, and especially the city of Budapest, seemed
to be condemned to ruin.

But when one visits Hungary three years after
the signing of the Treaty of Trianon and asks
for an honest answer to the question, 'Ts the
present Hungary a hopeless proposition, a state
that cannot live?" one does not get a categorical
affirmative. Nor have any leaders whom I in-
terviewed declared that the payment of repara-
tions was impossible, provided a definite and rea-
sonable sum was finally agreed upon. When I
probe, and try to get at the bottom of the griev-
ances, I discover that my Hungarian friends are
invariably comparing the present situation, and
its calamities, with what Hungary used to be.

Like the Turks, the Hungarians won and
maintained by superior force a privileged posi-
tion in a vast country which they shared with
other peoples. They were a dominant race, who
tried to impose their language and culture on
others. When they fought the Germans to re-
tain their independence and arrived at the com-
promise of the Dual Monarchy, it did not occui"
to them that self-government was a privilege as
precious and as advantageous to other peoples

as to themselves. And, now that they have lost

320

THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

their dominant position in the same way in which
they gained it, that is, by war, it is hard for them
to reconcile themselves to a more humble station
in life. They accepted the treaty, for they did
not intend to commit national suicide. But after
the power to impose their rule upon others has
gone, they retain the curious feeling that they still
ought to be considered as possessing the inalien-
able right to all the regions they once ruled!

One criticizes the Treaty of Trianon, not be-
cause one has sympathy with Hungarian griev-
ances based upon national pride and interest, but
because the frontiers as now drawn are unwise
and impolitic if we are looking for a durable
world peace and for an end to the intolerable bur-
den of universal military service and heavy ar-
maments. The millions of Hungarians, now
aliens in adjacent territory, create a new irreden-
tist problem so dangerous that the Succession
States have had to form an alliance to meet it,
and the alliance calls for the indefinite mainte-
nance of standing armies to hold the Hungarians
down. More than this, with an irredentist ques-
tion keeping them apart, it is going to be difficult
for the neighboring peoples, whose economic in-
terests are interdependent, to reestablish normal
relations.

There is little fear of a fresh outbreak of

Communism. That disease ran its course in the

321

EUROPE SINCE 1918

first months of the disaster, and the people are
cured. Bela Kun and his friends gave a prac-
tical demonstration of the working of Commu-
nism that was convincing enough to satisfy the
present generation of Hungarians! The aim of
the Hungarian Government is to endeavor to
bring about a commercial rapprochement with
the former subject peoples in such a way as to
free trade relations and exchanges as much as
possible from the inconveniences of the new fron-
tier barriers. Through passenger and freight
trains, tariff reciprocity, abolition of passport
formalities, good will on the part of those who
make and enforce regulations of international in-
tercourse— these are what Hungary needs to get
on her feet again. The country is able to feed
itself and to export cereals and cattle. Once
trade relations are resumed with her neighbors
on a reasonable basis, Hungary can get to work,
balance her budget, and pay reparations. But
will Rumania, Jugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia
give Hungary a chance to revive? Will they
consent to allow the people of the provinces they
have taken to form once more the old habit of
going to Budapest? There is the rub. The
frontiers of Trianon unfortunately influence the
Succession States to view the question of rap-
prochement from the point of view of political
security.

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THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

Hungary now has within her narrowed borders
a homogeneous population, and her unrivaled
geographical position on the Danube remains.
Most of the national hatreds and racial feuds that
used to make the Budapest Parliament an arena
of wild animals and cause Hungarian statesmen to
tear their hair have been transferred to Belgrade
and Prague. Less than half the population of
Jugoslavia is Serbian of the Orthodox persua-
sion, and less than half the population of Czecho-
slovakia is Czech. The minority elements are
already causing trouble. Because of their Hun-
garians and other foreigners, notably their Ger-
mans, the new states fear to take the steps toward
economic agreements that are dictated by com-
mon sense. Political considerations outweigh
material advantages.

The Hungarians, despite the oppression of
non-Magyar elements, were good stewards.
They developed the country materially with skill
and energy, and the prosperity of Budapest is
well deserved. Not because it was favored by
legislation but because of its key position on the
Danube did Budapest become a railway-center.
The railway lines exist, and the city is equipped
to serve the population of the whole region. The
Succession States have neither the large cities
in annexed territory nor the geographical posi-
tion to do as well economically by the regions

323

EUROPE SINCE 1918

over which they are now ruling as Hungary did.
And they suffer equally with her the loss of un-
hampered access to the sea. The Succession
States are as much afraid of giving Budapest its
old-time accessibility to the regions that used to
depend upon it as the French are afraid of allow-
ing Germany to rehabilitate herself by the free
play of economic laws.

Unless Hungary finds, then, that she can get
along alone she must try to form a union with
Rumania or to overthrow by force the Treaty of
Trianon.

The first possibility is advocated by many Hun-
garians, who argue that it is better for Hungary
to look to the east than to the west. The one
benefit of the disaster of 1918 was freedom from
German overlordship. The Hungarians have
too vivid a memory of being weighed down by
Vienna and latterly by Berlin through Vienna to
look forward with satisfaction or equanimity to
a new Drang nach Osten. It is pointed out that
the Rumanians need Hungarian friendship to
make Transylvania and the Banat of Temesvar
contented under Rumanian rule. Transylvania
is shut off from Rumania by high mountains and
looks naturally to the west. All the outlets from
the Banat are to the west. Another argument in
favor of a close understanding with Rumania is
that the Rumanians are, like the Hungarians,

324

THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

an island of radically different nationality from
the surrounding Slavs.

Rumania does not receive Hungarian overtures
any too cordially. Nothing short of a Russo-
Bulgaro-Turk combination would induce Ru-
mania to advocate a revision of the Treaty of
Trianon and the entry of Hungary either into
the Little Entente or into an alliance and cus-
toms union with Rumania. That may come, of
course, but it is not probable. Practical-minded
Hungarians realize that Rumanians object to
them for much the same reasons that they object
to the Germans. The West knows how to im-
pose political domination through cultural supe-
riority. And as Berlin and Vienna are to Buda-
pest, so Budapest is to Bucharest.

The alternative is what has always been the lot
of Hungary, the decision to find her support in
Teutonic Central Europe at the price of industrial
inequality and political vassalage. It is prob-
able that when Russia returns to her old self she
will resume her Balkan policy. This will drive
Italy once again, with sounder reason than last
time, into an alliance with Germany. Then
Hungary, mourning her lost provinces, will be
a valuable ally.

The Paris Conference had a glorious chance to
detach Hungary permanently from dependence
on Central Europe and make it worth her while

325

EUROPE SINCE 1918

to live an independent life. It was in the power
of the conference to draw the frontiers of Hun-
gary along ethnographic lines, using one weight
and one measure in dealing with the border-land
claims of all the Danubian states. This great
occasion was missed.

Two influences from the outside have given
new life and hope to the smoldering fires of Hun-
garian Nationalism. For a while after Admiral
Horthy and the Whites overcame the Com-
munists, Hungary was prostrate. The people
were apathetic. The Treaty of Trianon was a
crushing blow, and there was the tendency to re-
gard it as definitive. But the attitude of the En-
tente Powers themselves, first in encouraging
Turkey to resist the application of the Treaty of
Sevres and second in agreeing ignominiously to
make a new treaty with the Turks when Mus-
tapha Kemal Pasha successfully defied the En-
tente decrees, has given new hope to the Hun-
garians. What the Angora Nationalists did —
the Turks are kinsmen of the Hungarians — the
Magyars can do. All they have to wait for, as
has been demonstrated by the events in Asia
Minor, is fresh discord or simply lack of harmony
among the Entente Powers. Then the Hun-
garians feel that they may not have to wait for
the recovery of Germany, but can get the help

of the Italians against the Little Entente. Is

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THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

this an absurd hope? Experience makes justifi-
able an emphatic negative !

The other inspiration that has come from
abroad is the success of Fascismo in Italy. The
Hungarians have long had "the wakeners," an
organization formed as the Fascisti group was
formed to suppress Communism and Socialism.
The August, 1922, revolution in Rome strength-
ened immeasurably the influence of "the awak-
eners" in Budapest, where, in the Wenkheim
Palace, a new society, closely modeled on the
Fascisti, and with similar rites, is aiming to set
up a Fascist government.

The "Argrad Blood Association" and the
"Turanian Association" are moving for a Hun-
garian alliance with Mohammedanism. More
significant still is the "Hungarian Defense
League," a militarist organization of former of-
ficers which still controls secretly the notorious
military "Detachments" that played the decisive
role in suppressing Bolshevism. These various
organizations have recently spread into Slovakia,
Bukowina, Transylvania, and the Banat of
Temesvar. The Succession States are begin-
ning to experience the inconvenience of holding
large alien populations.

The only factor in the situation that prevents
the irredentist movements from being already se-
rious— alarmingly serious — is the agrarian ques-

327

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tion. Hungary is still under the domination of
the land-owning classes, while peasant propri-
etorship has won its way in Rumania and Jugo-
slavia and is making progress in Slovakia. Most
of the large landowners in the now "unredeemed"
lands of Hungary are Hungarian aristocrats;
and the peasants, although Magyars, knowing the
failure of land partition to make progress in
Hungary, are not sure that they would be better
off if they returned to their old allegiance. Up
to this time the oppression of Hungarians in the
liberated states has been confined to landowners
and townspeople; and the Hungarian peasants
have, in fact, profited by this.

The agrarian question, until it is settled by the
disappearance of great estates, plays a role the
importance of which can hardly be overestimated
in the newly awakened national rivalries in bor-
der-lands from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The
Poles are confronted, for instance, with an em-
barrassing dilemma. They want to drive the
Germanic influence out of the Baltic states be-
cause it is a menace to their ambitions. But
German influence in the territories ceded by the
Treaty of Versailles to Poland and in the Baltic
states is based upon the landed aristocracy, which
is the foundation of Polish influence in the Rus-
sian border-lands and Eastern Galicia. Advo-
cating agrarian laws helps Poland in some places

328

THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

and acts as a tremendous boomerang in other
places! So it is with the encouragement of ir-
redentist movements. If nationalism finds its
support largely with the aristocracy, and they
have to go to the peasant masses in coveted bor-
der-lands to spread their movement, when the
"unredeemed" regions are added to the so-called
mother-land, the promoters of the irredentist
movement are the first to suffer. It has recently
happened that way in Rumania. To-day Hun-
garians, both peasants and proprietors, are won-
dering which is the more important, national
pride or class interest.

When we study problems and reconstruction in
a topsyturvy world, we find that they are not new
problems. They are old problems, couched in
different terms, perhaps, and clothed a bit dif-
ferently. But they are the same problems for all
that ; is not geography the same, distribution of
wealth the same, and human nature the same?

329

CHAPTER XVII
AUSTRIA WITHOUT HER PROVINCES

IN the middle of October, 1918, Marshal von
Hindenburg telegraphed to Vienna that it
would be impossible to hold the western front
any longer unless Austrian reinforcements were
immediately forthcoming. From a purely mili-
tary point of view the appeal was reasonable.
Although the June offensive had failed, the Aus-
trians were still superior to the Italians; and
there was no reason to believe that the Austro-
Hungarian armies could not continue to hold
their lines, even though they detached a consider-
able body of troops, until winter made an Italian
offensive impossible. Because he was unaware
of the moral factors in the situation, von Hin-
denburg was surprised when he received a re-
fusal. It was at this moment that the handwrit-
ing upon the wall appeared before the eyes of the
German General Staff.

But it had long been evident at Vienna that
the war would be won or lost on the western front
and by the Germans alone. With the composite
and mutually antagonistic elements that com-

33o

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

posed the armies of the Hapsburg Empire, it was
nothing short of a miracle that Austria-Hungary
had held out so long. The authority of the Vi-
enna Government was sustained only through the
belief of the peoples of the Dual Monarchy that
Germany was invincible. The collapse of Rus-
sia had come in time to check serious disloyalty in
the non-German and non-Magyar portions of the
Austro-Hungarian army. Until Germany ap-
pealed for aid, most of the Hapsburg subjects
felt that they would be playing a losing game if
they mutinied.

Study of the records shows that demoralization
began in the rear, and that it was the result of
news leaking through of disasters falling upon
the coalition of the Central Empires. The capit-
ulation of Bulgaria and Turkey came nearer
home to Vienna than to Berlin. And yet, if the
Germans had been successful on the western
front, these events would not in themselves have
led to the collapse of Austria-Hungary. It was
the German appeal for aid that suddenly made
the Vienna Government realize the hopelessness
of the situation. There was a revolution at
Prague. The Croats proclaimed their independ-
ence at Agram. Count Karolyi and Archduke
Joseph called the Hungarian divisions back to
defend their native land.

For some days the news was kept from the

331

EUROPE SINCE 1918

troops. In the fighting from October 24 to 28
the Italians had failed signally to achieve on their
front results comparable to those of the French
and British and Americans on the western front.
The Austrian army group at Belluno fought won-
derfully— even the Czechs, whose crack Prague
regiment distinguished itself. The change came
on the night of October 28, when the news
of happenings in the rear reached the sol-
diers in the trenches and in reserve. Ordered to
undertake a counter-offensive on the morning of
October 29, the soldiers mutinied. The signal
was given by the 26th Czech Rifles. The armies
began to leave the front. The Hapsburg Em-
pire collapsed in a few hours !

At the suggestion of Admiral Horthy, the im-
perial fleet was presented to the Jugoslav Govern-
ment that had been formed at Agram. No op-
position was made to the Prague revolution.
The imperial authorities made no effort to pre-
vent a revolt in Budapest.

When Austria asked for an armistice and
signed the terms of the Entente Powers on No-
vember 3, 1918, there really was no longer any
Austria. The Vienna Government was not in
a position to accept the responsibility for the
whole country. Czechs, Poles, and Jugoslavs
were out of the empire and were dealing directly
with the Allies. Under the armistice terms Italy

332

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

occupied the territories that all the world knew
had been definitely promised to her by the secret
Treaty of London in 191 5. Several million of
her German-speaking population passed imme-
diately under the control of the new Czech Gov-
ernment at Prague, and several hundred thou-
sand Tyrolese came within the zone of military
occupation of the Italian armies. Austria at the
outbreak of the war had a population of about
30,000,000, of whom not more than 10,500,000
were Germans; the Czechs and Slovaks were
6,700,000; the Poles 5,000,000; the Ukrainians
3,700,000; and the Jugoslavs 3,000,000. Thus,
while Austrians were more numerous than any
other element, they comprised only a third of the
population, and more than 3,000,000 of that third
were in Bohemia. These figures show how radi-
cally different was the situation of Austria from
that of Germany. Many of the leading generals
and statesmen and a very large number of the
functionaries of the Hapsburg Empire were from
the non-Austrian and non-Magyar peoples,
Throughout the war the army had been com-
posed, officers and men, of the entire population,
and the Austrians and Hungarians contributed
only about 50 per cent — perhaps less than that —
to the fighting forces that had invaded and im-
posed their will on Serbia and Rumania, had suc-
cessfully withstood Italy and Russia, and had

333

EUROPE SINCE 1918

contributed to the success of Germany on the
western front. The major part of the Austro-
Hungarian artillery was manufactured in Bo-
hemia.

And yet, when the Paris Conference assembled,
all the Hapsburg peoples except Austrians and
Hungarians were represented and were regarded
as co-victors with the Entente Powers. On the
other hand, the Austrian element in the Haps-
burg Empire was held to be the culprit, responsi-
ble for the war, guilty of its excesses ; and in the
settlement all the sins of the Hapsburgs were
visited upon the heads of less than 7,000,000
Austrians. The inconsistency in the attitude or
the Peace Conference toward the Hohenzollern
and Hapsburg Empires is amazing, and shows
that neither logic nor a sense of justice inspired
the victors, but simply the desire to impose
treaties that would serve best their own interests.
The Germans were told, when they protested
against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles,
that no government could have initiated and car-
ried on the war without the consent and support
of all the people; therefore, the inhabitants of
Germany could not escape punishment by doing
away with their government. Germany still re-
mained a powerful nation; therefore prudence
inspired guarantees for future good behavior,
and a sense of justice demanded the payment of

334

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

reparations and the punishment of war criminals.

Less than 7,000,000 Austrians, a third of
whom lived in the city of Vienna, were indicted,
tried, found guilty, and punished in the Treaty of
St.-Germain for the misdeeds of the Hapsburg
Empire. Nothing could have been more absurd
than to suppose that these people were a super-
race who had dominated for five centuries the
peoples round about them, and that from 1914
to 1918 6,500,000 people could have held the other
23,000,000 inhabitants of Austria so completely
at their mercy that the latter, bowing to force
majeure, should have fought against their will
for those who held them, terrorized, in complete
subjection. In the great Austrian armies, ac-
cording to this assumption, Czechs, Poles,
Ukrainians, Croatians, Dalmatians, Slovenes, and
other peoples were no more than unwilling slaves,
doing their master's bidding. At the same time
these non-Austrian elements were assumed to be
so superior in culture and inhibitions to the Aus-
trians that all the violations of the laws of war-
fare, all the crimes, were committed solely by
German-speaking soldiers and officers!

If any one thinks I am exaggerating, let him
read the Treaty of St.-Germain and bear in mind
that this treaty was imposed upon less than one
fourth of the inhabitants of pre-war Austria with
about one fourth of the area of pre-war Aus-

335

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tria, and that a third of the inhabitants of the
new state live in one city, whose size and equip-
ment for industry and commerce (Vienna is the
fourth city of Europe) are the result of economic
evolution as the center of a great nation. Read
the Treaty of St.-Germain, I ask, and then judge
for yourself what must have been the state of
mind of the men who framed it.

The Hapsburg Empire was a governmental
system, not a nation; and after the rise of the
principle of nationality in the nineteenth century
it had held together against powerful currents of
disintegration because the ruling classes of its
various elements believed their prosperity and se-
curity were better guaranteed by remaining in
the empire than by separating from it. Irreden-
tism became a powerful influence with peasants,
when sufficiently worked upon, and with petty pol-
iticians, students, and a portion of the profes-
sional classes. Landowners, business men, man-
ufacturers, and clergy among all the Hapsburg
peoples supported the governmental system, in-
dorsed its foreign policy, and worked as hard as
the Austrians and Hungarians up to the very end
for the success of the coalition of the Central
Empires. The sinking ship was deserted when it
was realized that Germany was going to lose.

In the general sauve qui peut, the non-Aus-
trians at Vienna and in the provinces suddenly

336

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

discovered that a new citizenship would save them
from the moral and material consequences of
defeat and that attention could be diverted from
their own war activities by capitalizing the world-
wide distrust and hatred of the Germans to in-
clude the Austrians. The Treaty of St. -Germain
punished a German-speaking people, but it was
more cruel and disastrous to the Austrians than
was the Treaty of Versailles to the Germans.
The Treaty of St.-Germain closed the only door
left open to the Austrians for rehabilitating them-
selves economically and for finding an opportu-
nity of consoling themselves in their ostracism.
They were condemned because they were Ger-
mans, but they were forbidden to unite with
Germany.

Austria lost not only her non-German popula-
tion and provinces but also one third of her Ger-
man population. She was rendered militarily
impotent, cut off from her access to the sea, de-
prived of the southern part of the Tyrol with a
purely German population, made dependent upon
her former provinces for food-stuffs and coal,
and left without the means of manufacturing suf-
ficient to pay for the food-stuffs and coal she
would have to import. She was left saddled with
the great city of Vienna, containing a population
of more than 2,000,000, and every effort was
made in the treaty to destroy Vienna's one

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

chance of making ends meet, i. e., by remaining
a center of distribution on one of the world's
main trade-routes. The route of the Orient Ex-
press was changed to run by way of Venice and
Triest ; through express trains with Germany, the
one friendly country, were forbidden; and a new
regime for the Danube was created for the pur-
pose of stifling Vienna's Danube trade. The
Austrian delegation at the Peace Conference,
through its able spokesman, Dr. Renner, pointed
out from indisputable statistics that the Treaty
of St.-Germain condemned the Austrians to pov-
erty and slow starvation, and pleaded either for
permission to join Germany by the exercise of
the right of self-determination (which was the
justification of the treaty!) or for guarantees
that the lost provinces should arrange to give
Austria stipulated amounts of coal and food-
stuffs to enable her to exist. The Peace Confer-
ence refused to admit the necessity of either al-
ternative. On the other hand, heavy reparations
in cash and in kind were inserted in the treaty.

The hopelessness of the situation in which the
Peace Conference put the Austrians is demon-
strated by the fact that the new Austria is a
mountainous country, with less than 25 per cent
of its area capable of producing food-stuffs.
The hilly country is suitable for breeding cattle
but is unable to provide the requirements of the

338

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

people as regards meat and fat. Before the war
only 14 per cent of the meat and fat consumed in
Vienna came from the provinces left to Austria
by the Treaty of St.-Germain. The new Aus-
tria's forests contain soft woods. By the most
optimistic calculations she can supply only one
fifth of her fuel requirements. Thus manufac-
tures are bound to languish and the people to be
permanently undernourished unless Austria joins
Germany or is admitted into a customs union with
her former provinces. Nearly five years of de-
spair and agony have sufficiently proved this
statement. In Vienna the people feel that they
are doomed.

The Entente Powers have realized that com-
mon humanity as well as policy demand that the
Austrians be saved from the fate imposed upon
them by the Treaty of St.-Germain. They have
come to see that the geographical position of Aus-
tria makes it impossible for them to leave her to
her fate, as they have done in the case of Ar-
menia. The Succession States also are beginning
to come to their senses. Statesmen are now in
agreement with economists, and are willing to
waive reparations payments and admit that the
great highway of Europe by the Danube must
continue to be traveled. When Chancellor Seipel
made the rounds of the European capitals in the
summer of 1922, begging for an international

339

EUROPE SINCE 1918

loan and for the indefinite postponement, if not
the wiping out, of reparations claims, he was
received favorably everywhere. The Entente
Powers and the Succession States agreed that
something must be done, and to the League of
Nations was entrusted the task of helping Aus-
tria to her feet by means of an international
loan. Credits recently granted Austria have en-
abled the Government to begin a policy of cur-
rency reform ; and Viennese importers and ex-
porters have been enabled to arrange for a suf-
ficient exchange of Austrian products against
coal and food-stuffs to prevent the country from
going to pieces.

The scheme of the League of Nations for the
financial reconstruction of Austria was embodied
in the Geneva protocols, signed on October 4,
1922, and provides for a rigorous control of Aus-
trian finances up to the end of 1924, when it is
hoped that the budget will be balanced. The
Austrian Government was required to secure
from Parliament full authority for two years to
go ahead without parliamentary control and to
carry out financial rehabilitation — with the re-
forms necessary to assure it — under the supervi-
sion of a Commissioner-General appointed by the
League. Dr. Zimmermann, burgomaster of Rot-
terdam, accepted the task and took up his work
in Vienna on December 16. Not the League but

340

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

Great Britain, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia
guaranteed 84 per cent of a total loan of 650,-
000,000 gold crowns, with Spain taking 4 per
cent, Switzerland 3 per cent, Belgium 2 per cent,
and Holland 1 per cent. The first four powers,
however, agreed to guarantee all the first short-
term loan. It was agreed that Austria should
dismiss 100,000 officials before July 1, 1924,
25,000 each half-year. This drastic measure
was necessary, but it will only add to the unem-
ployment and suffering. Between the time of the
signature of the Geneva protocols and the end
of the year, the number of unemployed in Vienna
rose from 57,000 to 120,000, and by April 1923,
had reached 170,000.

The measures imposed and the aid given by the
League of Nations are only palliatives. They
have not solved the problem ; they have only post-
poned for a brief time the solution. "Austria,"
I was told by Dr. Griinberger, minister of foreign
affairs, "is like a man whose arms and legs have
been cut off, but who is all the same expected to
walk and work. We are being given alms, but
are told that this is just to tide us over. Tide us
over to what?" Dr. Griinberger was food ad-
ministrator during the trying period immediately
after the war, and later minister of commerce.
He has taken an active part in Austrian affairs
since the first days of the republic. President

34i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Hainisch and other leaders of political and finan-
cial life express the same opinion as Dr. Griin-
berger, that under the conditions of the Treaty of
St.-Germain Austria cannot work out any scheme
of independent existence. Nor have the alms-
givers presented to the Austrian Government a
way of salvation. It stands to reason, therefore,
that there must be either a liberal economic ar-
rangement for interchange of raw materials,
manufactured articles, coal, wood, and food-stuffs
among the Succession States or union with Ger-
many.

A conference of the Succession States, in
which British and French representatives partici-
pated, was held at Porta Rosa in November, 1921,
for the laudable purpose of finding a way to
settle some of the practical difficulties arising
from the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire.
Postal and telegraph relations and a modus
Vivendi for transport were arranged, but it was
impossible to come to an agreement about the
question vital to Austria, that of tariffs. The
Succession States, including Italy, needed to
arrange with Austria about communications.
They did not need to trade with her so much as
she needed to trade with them.

Two years have passed since Porta Rosa.
Little progress has been made in the establish-
ment of normal and reasonable economic relations

342

AUSTRIA WITHOUT PROVINCES

among the Succession States. This is only
partly due to the intractability of the emancipated
Hapsburg peoples. For while there are dangers
in any such arrangements where it is Hungary
who would benefit, the neighbors of Austria do
not have to fear from Vienna what there is rea-
sonable ground of fearing from Budapest. Sin-
ister outside influences are at work to prevent the
consummation of the rriovement begun at Porta
Rosa. Austria is suffering from the conflicting
policies of France and Italy. France has no ob-
jection to the regrouping of the Danubian states
into an economic federation, if this be necessary
for the salvation of Austria. Italy, on the other
hand, is determined to prevent the adoption of
any plan that might lead to a Danubian federa-
tion, in which the Slavs would predominate.
Rather than see this accomplished, she would pre-
fer the union of Austria with Germany. To
France and Czechoslovakia the incorporation of
Austria into Germany is a contingency the pos-
sibility of which both countries refuse to admit.

But if an independent Austria is impossible,
and Italy, herself the most powerful of the Suc-
cession States, blocks the way to the economic
agreements Austria must have to exist apart
from Germany, what alternative is there to the
Anschluss (union)?

Many Austrians are opposed to the Anschluss

343

EUROPE SINCE 1918

and point out to you that there is no more reason
for them to favor joining the German Empire
than for Americans to favor joining the British
Empire. These irreconcilable?, however, admit
that the Anschluss is inevitable, on the ground
that Austria cannot live alone, and must be either
a member of a Danubian federation or a prov-
ince of Germany. They think that the latter so-
lution is not for the best interests of their
country; the prospect wounds their pride; and,
from an international point of view, they see only
trouble ahead for Europe in the union of their
country with Germany.

The acceptance of the present status of Aus-
tria as perm: lent by the League of Nations in-
dicates the subserviency of that supposedly inter-
national organization to the interests of certain
powers. The Council of the League has post-
poned the collapse of Austria in the same way
as it settled the Upper Silesia and Vilna ques-
tions, by offering a solution that took into account
the transcendent interests of members of the
Council. Austria had to be helped to her feet
financially to repair, if possible, the damage done
by the Treaties of St. -Germain and Trianon,
which broke up the Hapsburg Empire without
providing for economic safeguards for Austria
or the alternative — union with Germany.

That the danger remains — a danger that may

344

WITHOUT PROVINCES

well lead to a new war — is evident from the sig-
nificant and dramatic participation of Austria in
the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first German
Parliament at Frankfort-on-Main, on May 18,
1923. Professor Hartmann, Austrian Ambas-
sador to Germany, declared that the Austrians
"are hard and fast in their yearning for the union
of Austria with Germany," and he asserted his
belief that the Anschluss would be effected even-
tually. When he reached his peroration, "The
revolution of 1918 will bring us as its fruit the
unity and coordination of German middle Europe
into one state," the audience rose to its feet in
frenzied applause, led by President Ebert, Herr
Loeb, president of the Reichstag, and other lead-
ing- officials of the German Federal and State
Governments.

345

CHAPTER XVIII

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI
IN ITALY

AT the end of the World War the British and
French press begged Italy to renounce a
part, at least, of the spoils promised her by
the secret treaties of 191 5. It was feared that
a hopeless conflict would develop at the Paris
Conference between Italian imperialism and the
American — or rather Wilsonian — doctrine of
self-determination. The reasons for this plea
are easy to understand. Great Britain expected,
as usual, to gather in her advantages from the
victory outside Europe; and France had one ob-
jective, to which she was willing to sacrifice
everything else, the achievement of her own se-
curity by the diminution of the German Empire
and the shackling of German industries and com-
merce. It was felt in London and Paris that if
Italy were to stand on her treaty rights the whole
problem of peace would be made insoluble by
alienating President Wilson and by creating an-
tagonism to the Entente in south central and
southeastern Europe.

346

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

Alone among the members of the Orlando Cab-
inet, Signor Bissolati, the famous Socialist leader,
advocated openly the application of the principle
of nationality in the peace settlement. He said
that the Treaty of London did not alter the fact
that Italy should abandon her claim to northern
Dalmatia, the Dodecanese, and the southern
Tyrol. By these sacrifices he asserted that Italy
would avoid friction with the Jugoslavs, win the
friendship of Greece, and abstain from the injus-
tice of annexing, for purely strategic reasons, the
purely German population of the Tyrol. When
his advice was rejected, Bissolati resigned his
portfolio and was followed by Nitti. A propa-
ganda was launched in Italy to work up enthusi-
asm for the Italian claims, to which was added
a demand for Fiume.

Public opinion was aroused to such an extent
that when Premier Orlando failed to obtain com-
plete recognition in Paris for the Italian point of
view he found himself obliged to resign, and was
succeeded by Signor Nitti just before the sign-
ing of the Treaty of Versailles. The Italian
claims as one of the Succession States of the
Hapsburg Empire were kept before the world by
the seizure of Fiume in September. The poet,
d'Annunzio, defied the commands of the Peace
Conference and the Italian Government to evacu-
ate the city.

347

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The new premier had formed a coalition Gov-
ernment, representing all parties except the So-
cialists. At the General Election in November
the Socialist party doubled its strength, and a
newly formed Clerical party won more than a
hundred seats. However, as there was no pos-
sibility of an alliance between Socialists and Cler-
icals, Nitti was able to form another coalition
cabinet without these two parties. Nitti an-
nounced that Italy's policy would be one of mod-
eration in regard to Germany and that his
Government would seek to solve the Adri-
atic question by direct negotiations with Jugo-
slavia.

Like Orlando at Paris, however, he failed at
the San Remo conference of Entente premiers
to gain an advantageous settlement of the succes-
sion of the Hapsburg empire; and it soon leaked
out that he had consented to a treaty with Turkey
which Italian public opinion believed to be too
favorable to Greece. Again like Orlando, Nitti
was forced out of office by the failure of his for-
eign policy. He was succeeded by the veteran
Giolitti, whose return to power caused tremen-
dous surprise abroad: for Signor Giolitti had op-
posed to the very end Italy's intervention in the
World War. Giolitti was able to make a direct
agreement with Jugoslavia and to secure its ratifi -
cation by the Italian Parliament before the end

348

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

of November. The Treaty of Rapallo was hailed
by Italian public opinion as the best possible so-
lution of a difficulty that could not have been
solved to the complete satisfaction of Italy ex-
cept by war. The virtual unanimity of the
support given to the Treaty of Rapallo was em-
phasized by the lack of protest in any quarter
when Premier Giolitti ordered the Italian troops
on Christmas eve to oust d'Annunzio from
Fiume.

The surprising reasonableness of public opin-
ion in questions of foreign policy was due to the
menace of internal revolution. We have seen
elsewhere how in the summer of 1920 the Italians,
driven from Albania by a sudden uprising, made
no attempt to retrieve their fortunes. The Gov-
ernment's hands were tied by a railway strike.
The railwaymen had refused to transport to
Brindisi troops destined for Albania. It was
clear that under these circumstances, had Italy
gone to war with Jugoslavia, the existing social
order might have been overthrown. The lesson
of Russia was before the minds of Italian states-
men. The Chamber of Deputies acquiesced
when Giolitti, in his statement on June 24, 1920,
said in reference to foreign policy:

Our principal object is to insure complete and definite
peace for Italy and the whole of Europe — an essential
condition for a solid beginning of the work of recon-

349

EUROPE SINCE 1918

struction. ... In order to achieve this complete peace
we must, without delay, establish friendly relations with
all other peoples, and, without restriction, begin normal
relations even with the Russian Government.

The veteran premier, to win the support of the
Socialists against the Communists, whose spread
was alarming, promised a bill amending the con-
stitution to make declarations of war and treaties
and agreements with foreign powers subject to
the sanction of Parliament.

It was none too soon. In the middle of Sep-
tember the industrial workers, especially in the
north, seized steel factories in a large number of
localities and established Soviets. They insisted
that the employees should supervise the buying
of raw materials, the selling of the finished prod-
uct, the adjustment of the scale of wages, and
the general conditions of work in the factories.
The next month there were peasant risings in
Sicily. Revolution seemed imminent. But the
Government matched its moderation in foreign
policy with a conciliatory attitude toward' the
workers. Instead of using force, Premier Gi-
olitti announced his intention of introducing a
measure, sponsored by the cabinet, imposing a
form of syndical control upon the manufacturers.
It was also proposed to confiscate war profits, in-
crease death-duties and taxes on unearned in-
comes, and encourage copartnership in industries.

35o

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

These wise concessions enabled the Giolitti
Government to cut the budget deficit by lessening
the subsidy on imported cereals. This raised the
price of bread, a courageous measure. The Gen-
eral Election of May, 1921, was far more peace-
able than had been anticipated. The Socialists
lost thirty seats, and the Clericals (Popolari)
gained eight. A new party, which had been op-
posing Socialists and Communists in many places
by violence, entered the Chamber with twenty
seats; they called themselves Fascisti. The ma-
jority of the Cabinet in the new Chamber was so
small that Giolitti resigned, and was succeeded by
Signor Bonomi. In the autumn of 1921 the Fas-
cisti held a congress at Rome, in which they trans-
formed their organization into a regular political
party. During the congress the street fighting
that had begun earlier in the year in other cities
broke out on a small scale for the first time in
Rome. When Parliament reopened on Novem-
ber 24, the Fascisti took issue in a noisy fashion
with the Communists.

The Bonomi Cabinet was forced out of office
at the beginning of February, 1922, by a com-
bination of circumstances difficult to analyze.
The immediate cause was the union of the Demo-
cratic coalition with the Socialists, who protested
against Bonomi's rapprochement with the Vati-
can. But that this was not a real issue soon be-

35i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

came evident. The new Cabinet, headed by
Signor Facta, failed to win the confidence of the
country, which was becoming, under the impul-
sion of the Fascisti, impatient of government by
compromise. Successive cabinets had failed ut-
terly to suggest, much less put into execution,
fiscal measures for rehabilitating the finances
of Italy. The country was gradually drifting
toward anarchy.

In the late summer of 1922, when parliamen-
tary leaders, after the resignation of Signor
Facta, appealed to Giolitti to come to Rome to
advise the King, a sudden coup d'etat put an end
to the "rule of the old men." Fascisti from all
over Italy poured into Rome on every train, wear-
ing black shirts and armed, and singing the death-
knell of the old political system :

"Giovinezza, giovinezza
Primavera di bellezza."

Socialists and Communists were quickly cowed.
The governmental troops, most of them members
or sympathizers of the Fascisti, could not be
counted upon. The King had the choice of call-
ing Benito Mussolini, leader of the Fascisti, to
form a cabinet, or of losing his throne. The
Fascist movement had made such great progress
in Italy since 1920 and was so well organized that
civil war was out of the question. Almost every-

352

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

body sympathized with the program of the Fas-
cists So Mussolini became premier, and has
been the uncontested, though unconstitutional,
ruler of Italy for more than a year.

Fascismo is primarily a movement of the youth
of Italy, under youthful leaders, most of them
born half a century after Giolitti, and none of
them in the same generation with the men who
were the political leaders of Italy up to the sum-
mer of 1922. Despite the pronouncement of the
first Rome congress, in the autumn of 1921, Fas-
cismo is not a political party. Its strength as
such is negligible. Born at a meeting in Milan
in 1919, its purpose, in the words of Mussolini,
was defined as a movement "of the spiritual
forces of Italy to awaken in Italians the full sense
of their own greatness and destiny as a nation.
. . . And it proposes at any cost, even at the
cost of Democratic conventions, to crush any
tendency that may threaten to drag the Italian
people into the morass of Socialism, Bolshevism,
and Internationalism." From the beginning of
the movement Mussolini has insisted that the
future of the nation must be in the hands of those
who are to live that future, and that the time had
come to put Italy into her true place among the
nations of the world.

From 1920 to 1922 Italy was ripe for revo-
lution. Several parties formed armed bands.

353

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The Socialists lost because of Communist ex-
cesses and the ungenerous attitude they adopted
toward army officers. After all, the war, with
its heavy sacrifices, had captured the imagination
of the young; and there was much idealism and
sincere patriotic feeling among the youth of Italy.
They reacted strongly against the Socialist teach-
ing of pacifism and internationalism. The mid-
dle class in the cities began to be alarmed at the
tendency of the Socialists to assume that only
those who worked with their hands were useful
members of society and had rights. It was in-
evitable that the Socialist bullying and terrorism
should lead to armed resistance on the part of the
more conservative elements. Mussolini, himself
of the lower classes, was keen enough to realize
that the great mass of the Italian people would
welcome a movement directed against the lawless-
ness of extreme radicalism. He and the prin-
cipal men he gathered around him to direct Fas-
cismo had all up to the last year of the war been
militant Socialists. They had come into prom-
inence through fighting the Government, and the
outlaw spirit dominated them. They abhorred
politics. And so, although they were sincere syn-
dicalists, they had broken with official Socialism
when the movement became a political party, us-
ing its energies to win votes.

Mussolini believed that suffrage did not offer
/ 354

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

the remedy, and he was contemptuous of his
friends who hoped to advance their theories by
getting themselves elected to Parliament.

The Italians were sick of financial and political
chaos, and were so apprehensive of Communism
that they were ready to stand behind any move-
ment that would combat the Socialist terrorism,
even if it meant fighting fire with fire. The Fas-
cist leader appealed to the instinct of self-preser-
vation in the middle classes; and in the course
of eighteen months he rallied round him the youth
of the middle classes, many sons of the aristoc-
racy, and the support of big industries. All the
while he considered the Government as negligible,
and not any more to be taken into account than
in the old days of his militant Socialism.

The advent to power of Mussolini was wholly
illegal, if we regard the philosophy of form.
The Fascisti could hardly have won a parliamen-
tary majority in the General Election. Mussolini
knew that; but he knew also that Italy was be-
hind him, and would remain behind him regard-
less of Parliament, if he succeeded in govern-
ing firmly and at the same time putting into
effect fiscal and other sorely needed reforms.
When the King asked him to form a cabinet, he
decided upon a coalition Government, five Fas-
cisti, three Democrats, two Catholics, one Na-
tionalist, and one Liberal, and he gave the port-

355

EUROPE SINCE 1918

folios of war and navy to General Diaz and
Admiral di Revel. He declared that the new
Government was going to act and not talk and
summed up his program in two sentences :

Our policy in internal affairs will be one of strict econ-
omy, discipline, and the restoration of our finances. The
Fascisti movement, which began as bourgeois, now has
become syndicalist, but syndicalist in the national sense,
taking into account the interests of workmen and those of
employers and producers.

It is always true that power sobers a man and
that the possession of governmental responsibility
makes things take an aspect different from the
one they bear to the political candidate, the agi-
tator, the reformer. Had Mussolini not changed
when he became the Government, he would have
been an amazing exception. We have seen in
recent years the evolution of Lloyd Gorge, Mil-
lerand, Briand, and Viviani, all of whom started
out as pacifists and advocates of violence against
the constituted authorities in order to secure the
triumph of their ideals. As soon as Mussolini
became premier, he was confronted with the prob-
lem of what to do with the youth of Italy. Pre-
cisely because he had taught them to take the law
into their own hands had he reached his exalted
position! The first preoccupation of the new
premier was to make his followers understand

356

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

that now that Fascismo had become a Govern-
ment there must be no more disorders. This was
no easy task. It required the adoption of an un-
compromising attitude toward many to whom
much was owed for the success that had been at-
tained. Local leaders, who refused to look to
Rome for guidance in Fascisti activities, were ex-
pelled.1 A serious outbreak at Turin, in which
the Fascisti took the law in their hands in the old
fashion, was followed by rigorous measures.

Mussolini knew that he would be lost if he did
not keep control of his own organization and at
the same time use it to intimidate recalcitrants in
Rome and in the provinces. He disbanded the
Royal Guard, created by Premier Nitti in 1920,
and replaced it by a new militia, the Black
Guards, composed of 80,000 picked Fascisti,
whose personal loyalty to the leader had been
tested. Those members of the Royal Guard who
were Fascisti were put in the Carabinieri. The
other groups that had started as the Fascisti had
started were forcibly disarmed and disbanded.
They included the followers of d'Annunzio, the

1 The most striking example of Mussolini's unhesitating de-
termination to use the iron fist rather than tolerate lack of dis-
cipline in the ranks of Fascismo occurred on May 23, 1923, when
he ordered the expulsion from the Fascist party of Captain
Padovani, Commander of the Neapolitan district Padovani was
not only a dear friend of Mussolini, but also the acknowledged
leader of the movement in southern Italy. In the expulsion de-
cree the names of a dozen other leading followers of Mussolini
in Naples appeared along with that of Padovani.

357

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Blue-Shirt Nationalists, and the Arditi del Po-
polo, whose clashes with the Fascisti had been
going on for two years.

When Parliament reopened on November 16,
1922, Mussolini did not ask for a vote of confi-
dence; he ordered it. He told the Chamber that
there would be no discussion as to who had the
power; it would be futile. He did not want to
dismiss the Chamber, unless they made such ac-
tion necessary. Having at his call "300,000
fully armed youths, resolved to anything and al-
most mystically ready to obey my orders, it is in
my power to punish all who defame and attempt
to throw mud at Fascismo. I can make this hall
a camping-place for my bands. I can close Par-
liament and constitute a purely Fascist Govern-
ment." Mussolini went on to say that if the vote
of confidence were not awarded there would be a
new election made "with Fascist clubs."

After this threat, a vote of confidence was a
farce. The sitting of Parliament was a farce.
The deputies had to listen to threats and abuse
from their Fascist colleagues. The only thing
to do was to preserve at least a form of constitu-
tionalism by granting Mussolini what he intended
to take without the leave of the Chamber. A
resolution was adopted granting Mussolini full
powers to do as he pleased, his decrees to have the

358

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

force of law until December i, 1923. To save
their faces, the deputies added that Mussolini
should be called upon in March, 1924, to give an
account to Parliament of the use of the powers
conferred by this law. Less than 300 of the 535
members of the Chamber were present. The rest
absented themselves, by reason of antagonism,
fear, or indifference. The Chamber was not con-
voked again until February 7, 1923, when the
ratification of foreign treaties was necessary.
The parliament building was surrounded by
Black Guards, and Mussolini refused to be in-
terpellated on domestic questions. Throughout
Italy, in local elections, the Fascisti took charge
of the polls. No other than Fascisti could be
voted for. But the voters were not allowed to
remain away from the polls as a protest. In
many places, absentees were assumed to be ill,
and large doses of castor-oil were administered!

The first year of the Mussolini regime has
been marked by a tendency toward the Right.
Labor organizations have been forcibly dis-
banded, cooperative stores closed, and censorship
of radical journals established; and the principle
of private ownership of railways and all other
state industries, including the post-office, is being
adopted. Many schools, too, have been turned
over to private management. The Mussolini

359

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Government is charged by its enemies with plung-
ing Italy into the worst sort of reaction at a time
when the rest of Europe is moving toward Lib-
eralism politically and socially. His attack on
Freemasonry was startling and marked the cut-
ting away from the traditions of the last half-
century. At the same time, Mussolini frankly
announced the intention of granting official rec-
ognition to the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, the Fascist principles make
Fascismo inimical to genuine Conservatism.
While disclaiming state control of industries and
crying out against Bolshevism, Mussolini finds
himself, by the very nature of his hold upon the
country, nearer Lenin in spirit and practice than
any other ruler in Europe. Because Fascismo
has now actually become the Government, indi-
vidualism must be submerged to the state. Mus-
solini cannot be other than an autocrat. He has
spoken with enthusiasm of a rapprochement with
the Church and has allowed crucifixes to be hung
in the rooms of public schools. But when the
Catholics at their spring congress in 1923 adopted
a program in conformity with their own interests,
Mussolini demanded that certain resolutions be
withdrawn. His command was not literally
obeyed. The Catholics simply tried to explain
diplomatically that they had meant no offense.
Mussolini would not tolerate divided loyalty. He

360

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

immediately asked for the resignation of the
Catholic members of his cabinet.1

Where Fascismo now stands is explained by
Mussolini in a short article, under the caption
"Forza e Consenso," in the March, 1923, number
of "Gerarchia," the Fascist review. Mussolini
declares that Liberalism is not the last word in
the art of governing; well suited for the nine-
teenth century, which was dominated by the de-
velopment of capitalism and national sentiment,
it is not necessarily adapted to the needs of the
twentieth century. Since the war our expe-
riences have shown us that Liberalism has been
defeated. Russia and Italy are proving it to be
possible to govern outside, above, and contrary
to, Liberal ideology. Communism and Fascism
have nothing to do with Liberalism.

The premier of Italy, conscious of his strength,
believes that parliamentary government has
caused a general nausea in the country. Giving
liberty to a few, he says, destroys the liberty of
all ; and he asks when it has happened in history

1 Mussolini felt very sure of the loyalty of the younger mem-
bers of the Catholic Party. Father Don Sturzo, leader of the
Catholics, found that he could not count upon the willingness of
the bulk of his followers to put Catholic interests above Fascist
principles. Fascismo has so strong a hold upon even the most
devout, who are in sympathy with the objects for which Don
Sturzo has been fighting in a country that is still politically anti-
Clerical, that there is a movement on foot to form a Fascist
Catholic Party, which will give whole-hearted support to Mus-
solini.

361

EUROPE SINCE 1918

that a state has rested exclusively upon the con-
sent of the people without the use of force.
Consent is as changing as the shifting sands.
Take away armed force from a government, leav-
ing it only its immortal principles, and it falls
a victim to the first organized group bent upon
overthrowing it. It is the right and duty of the
party in power to fortify and defend itself against
all opposition.

The Italians, in the opinion of Mussolini, are
weary of the orgy of liberty, and that is why the
younger generation is drawn toward Fascismo by
its roll-call of order, hierarchy, and discipline.
Men are longing for authority. After the years
of war and the failure of nations with representa-
tive institutions to establish internal prosperity
or international harmony, the day for strength
and resolution and unswerving purpose to do for
people what ought to be done for them, what they
want done, but what they do not know how to
do, is at hand. In peroration, Mussolini writes:

Fascismo, which did not fear in the first instance to
call itself reactionary when many Liberals of to-day lay
prone before the triumphant beast, has no hesitation
whatsoever now in declaring itself un-Liberal and anti-
Liberal. Let it be known, once and for all, that Fascismo
recognizes neither idols nor fetishes. It has passed once,
and, if necessary will tranquilly return, across the more
or less decomposed body of the Goddess of Liberty.

362

FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

Signor Giolitti, just before the advent of Mus-
solini, told the King that a party led by hesitating
men, dominated by fear, could no longer hope to
wield power in Italy. Signor Mussolini is cer-
tainly not dominated by fear. His minority
party is supported by a majority of the people.
But has not the Fascist program been hailed
exuberantly at home and abroad because it is a
new broom sweeping clean? The success of the
Fascist reforms is not yet certain, and neither
in speeches nor in action has the Mussolini Gov-
ernment revealed the clear outlines of a definite
and constructive internal and foreign policy.
What does Mussolini propose to put in place of
Liberal ideology?

While not so much interested in foreign affairs
as the Nationalists, and at times, in their clashes
with the Blue-Shirts and the Fiume Legionaries,
seemingly asserting the all-absorbing interest of
Italy in internal reforms, the Fascisti have none
the less made foreign policy a cardinal part of
their program. They have not been avowed im-
perialists. They are insisting upon Italy's equal
place and dignity with other nations. The na-
ture of the policies of premiers from Orlando to
Facta has been a secondary consideration. What
has incensed the Fascisti is the tendency of Great
Britain and France to look upon Italy as a little
brother, useful at times to help them, but not

363

EUROPE SINCE 1918

worth helping. Mussolini's first entrance into
international politics at Lausanne marked the
change Fascismo determined to give to Italy's
foreign relations. Mussolini made Curzon and
Poincare come to him at Territet. Why should
they assume that the Italian would naturally come
to them?

Here public opinion in all Italian circles sup-
ports Mussolini. To the Italians it seems pre-
posterous that either France or Great Britain
should aspire to dominate the Mediterranean.
Great Britain is in the Mediterranean only by
right of conquest, while France has a wide At-
lantic outlet. Both Great Britain and France
have colonies all over the world. Italy, on the
other hand, is a Mediterranean state, the only
Mediterranean state among the great powers.
When compared with those of her allies, her
colonial possessions amount to nothing. Invok-
ing the historic after the geographical, economic,
and strategic arguments, Italy has a better claim
to be the predominant power in the Near East
than France or Great Britain.

Italians understand to perfection the principle
of "whacking up," and the treaty of 191 5 shows
that their motive for entering the war was shar-
ing its spoils. But for them the spoils have not
been forthcoming. Wherever it was a question
of their share, they were confronted with the

364

GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

ideals of the war and were told that the principle
of self-determination had to prevail. As an ex-
ample of this cynicism, they cite Mr. Wilson's
Fiume declaration, written the same week that
Shantung was handed over to Japan. And since
the Peace Conference it has been explained to
them that Egyptians and Moroccans have not
the right to self-determination, but that Alba-
nians have. At Paris, when Signor Orlando was
pleading for Smyrna, he answered the argument
of injustice to Turkey and Greece by asking the
English how they justify their presence in Hong-
Kong. "That was long ago," was the answer of
Lloyd George. Clemenceau assented. Signor
Orlando got back at him quickly. "But do you
French not base your right to Alsace-Lorraine on
the ground that a title won by force cannot plead
prescription?"

The Italians have learned since 191 8 that to
British and French statesmen there is still only
one law, the law of might, and only one title, the
title of conquest. Italy, not being strong, has
had to bow to her more powerful allies; Italy,
not having any conquests worth while, has not
been able to make trades, as the French and Brit-
ish have done. So Italy's Near Eastern ambi-
tions frittered away to nothing, and the Lausanne
Conference became, like previous conferences, a
duel between French and British. Thoughtful

365

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Italians are beginning to wonder whether Italy
went in on the right side in the World War.
Great Britain holds Malta, and France Corsica
and Tunisia. If Italy had been Germany's ally
and the Central Empires had won, Italy would
have gained almost as much as she holds now at
the head of the Adriatic, and if the German vic-
tors had applied the same principles as the French
and British victors, with the tables turned, the
war would have ended with Corsica, Malta, and
Tunisia "restored" to Italy. Within the next
generation will not Italy be compelled to fight
Great Britain and France to avoid remaining per-
manently an economic slave in her own ocean?

Before Mussolini came to power the state of
mind in Italy was well illustrated by the Turin
"Stampa," the organ of Giolitti. The "Stampa,"
apropos of the British concessions to France and
Germany in return for a free hand in the Near
East, commented:

In both camps it would be the triumph of an imperialist
policy which would foster new wars and end in rendering
illusory the very agreement between the contracting par-
ties. ... It is not necessary to point out, besides, the
injury to Italy, to Germany, to Turkey, and even to
Greece (really reduced in that case to British vassalage)
implied by this hypothetical division into zones of influence
of the vast stretches from the Rhine to the Euphrates,
from Cologne to Bagdad.

366

GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI

The Young Italian movement has something
in common with the Young Turk movement and
the other non-European Nationalist movements
that are labeled "Young." To win, and then to
maintain a place among the nations, to stand up
for one's rights, a country must be strong. And
a country cannot be strong unless the old politi-
cal machine has been swept away, finances put
upon a sound basis, and sweeping reforms in ad-
ministration introduced. The people as a whole
cannot be relied upon to do this. Thus it falls to
the lot of a private organization to oppose and
overthrow the existing Government by force.
Lawlessness is justifiable because it is for the
purpose of combating decadence and anarchy.
Overriding the suffrage right of the people is jus-
tifiable, because the Government established by
the revolution knows better than they do what
is needed to save the country. Before the revolu-
tion the country was held in contempt among
the nations. After the revolution the miracles
wrought will compel the respect of other nations.
Then will the country in which the beneficent
revolution occurred, by being strong, assert tri-
umphantly its rights and further its interests the
world over.

367

CHAPTER XIX

BELGIUM AFTER THE WORLD WAR
A FTER the German invasion, in 19 14, the

Belgians moved their Government from

Brussels to Antwerp and then to Ostend.
When the last strip of southwestern Flanders be-
came a battle-front, they were compelled to take
refuge at Havre. With the exception of Serbia,
no country suffered as much during the World
War as Belgium. Up to the day of the armis-
tice the little kingdom was completely under the
heel of an enemy military occupation. It was
natural that the withdrawal of the Germans
should have been followed by a universal out-
burst of nationalism in an exaggerated form, and
that the Belgian people should have believed that
their reward for heroic endurance was going to
be great and immediate. They forgot for a mo-
ment that they were a small state, and that the
disinterested gratitude of the big fellows could
not be expected to go far beyond fine speeches.
The Principal Allied and Associated Powers
showed their affection and esteem for Belgium
by changing their legations to embassies. But
that is as far as it went.

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BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

The Belgians quickly learned that in interna-
tional relations size has everything to do with
power, and that gratitude for services rendered
in the past plays no part in world politics. Re-
ceiving and sending ambassadors was not going
to make Belgium- big, while new and continued
services to the interests of the great powers
were to be required. The World War was past
history !

The Belgians found this out when the Peace
Conference opened. They were immediately rele-
gated to the position of a "secondary state with
particular interests," and, like other small states,
to get a hearing and espousal of their national
aims, they had to become a satellite of one of the
great powers.

When the Allied armies entered Brussels in
November, 1918, they found the walls placarded
with posters displaying a map, signed by the
"Comite de Politique Nationale." We looked,
rubbed our eyes, and looked again. What did
the Belgians hope to get for having saved the
world? A drastic rectification of frontiers with
Holland, Germany, and France, reconstituting
the historic Belgian motherland and giving Bel-
gium defensible boundaries. These comprised
the left bank of the Scheldt to its mouth; Dutch
Limburg, with Maestricht ; the fourteen Walloon
cantons, given to Prussia by the Treaty of Vienna

369

EUROPE SINCE 1918

in 1 81 5; the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg; and
a change in the Ardennes frontier with France.
On first glance the only part of this program that
looked at all feasible was what Belgium wanted
to take from Germany. Holland was a neutral
state, not mixed up in the war, and it was in-
credible to expect France to do anything terri-
torially for Belgium or to allow her to incorporate
the Grand Duchy. On second thought the map
embodying Belgian desiderata seemed to bring
up the thorny question of an unneutralized Bel-
gium in the European political world.

When Belgium was erected into an independent
state by the Treaty of London in 1839, a question
that had been settled after Napoleonic wars was
reopened. Great Britain, Prussia, and France
were equally suspicious each of the others.
Through Belgium Prussia could menace France
and France Prussia. Through Belgium either
Prussia or France could menace Great Britain.
France had determined to keep control of the
Meuse valley as far north as possible. Prussia
had determined to bar the road to the Rhine.
Great Britain had determined to prevent Ant-
werp from becoming a port of war on the North
■Sea. All three nations agreed to guarantee the
neutrality of Belgium. But they took additional
precautions. Great Britain insisted that Holland
should remain in control of both banks of the

370

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

Scheldt at its mouth. Prussia had insisted on
Holland retaining a portion of Limburg and upon
the separate political existence of a portion of
Luxemburg. France insisted upon a tongue of
land in the Ardennes on both sides of the Meuse.
The three powers worked the problem out in
terms "of their own interests and not those of the
new country. They drew the boundaries of Bel-
gium with no regard for her strategic interests.
But strategic consideration for Belgium did not
have to enter in. Was she not to be neutralized?

When Belgium came to the Peace Conference
her statesmen felt justified in pointing out that the
common guarantee of neutrality had not worked
when put to a supreme test; for the early days
of the war had proved how disastrous was the
control of the entrance to Antwerp in the hands
of a neutral state. And, if the war had gone on,
Maestricht as neutral territory would have been
a tremendous handicap to the advance of Allied
armies. Why, they asked, should consideration
be shown to Holland now? Her neutral role in
the World War was inglorious, and just lately her
conduct in receiving the fleeing Kaiser and refus-
ing to deliver him up to justice was an unfriendly
act.

In themselves the arguments were powerful.
Holland could not have resisted a united demand
of the Entente Powers to consent to the revision

37i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of the old Treaty of London in favor of Belgium.
But, even with Germany eliminated from the
problem, the motives that had actuated the treaty-
makers of 1839 were still alive. British and
French statesmen could not build for the future
on the dangerous assumption that their countries
were to remain forever friends. Maestricht was
a barrier that worked both ways, while the North
Sea policy of Great Britain dictated more than
ever, now that submarines were in vogue, the ad-
visability of keeping Antwerp bottled up. With
the Dutch East Indies at the mercy of the British
fleet, Great Britain had a powerful argument that
could be always used to compel Holland to main-
tain the neutrality of the estuary of the Scheldt.

The Entente Powers, therefore, refused to con-
sider any revision of the Treaty of 1839 detri-
mental to Holland as within the province of the
treaty to be imposed upon Germany, but left the
matter to direct negotiations between the two
countries. This, of course, amounted to a re-
fusal to consider the Belgian suggestions at all.
The Franco-Belgian frontier was also left to the
French and Belgians. The Grand Duchy of
Luxemburg was detached from the German cus-
toms union, of which it had been a member since
1842, and from the German railway control,
which had been exercised since 1870. The politi-
cal status of the duchy and its future economic

372

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

connections were to be decided by a referendum
to the Luxemburg electorate.

The fourteen so-called Walloon cantons of the
Rhineland had become thoroughly Germanized
during the nineteenth century. Possibly this fact
in itself would not have deterred the Paris Con-
ference from giving favorable consideration to
Belgian claims. But the British, uncertain of
the future affiliations of Belgium, did not want to
undertake the burden of defending her against
German irredentism, should she become their ally ;
and they did not want to make Belgium too pow-
erful, should she become the ally of the French.
The French, on the other hand, had their own
program for the Rhineland. Belgium, therefore,
was given only two of the fourteen cantons.

The Treaty of Versailles provided that Mal-
medy and Eupen should be occupied by Belgium,
and that the Council of the League of Nations
should decide the final disposition of these two
border districts. The inhabitants were given a
certain time in which to record on registers pro-
vided for that purpose their desire to remain with
Germany. Few of them dared to risk this step,
which would have meant confiscation of their
homes and expulsion, although none of them
wanted to become Belgians. This farcical scheme
for preventing a plebiscite was successful. The
council gravely decreed that Malmedy and Eupen,

373

EUROPE SINCE 1918

in view of the fact that no serious protestation
was offered in the way provided for by the Treaty
of Versailles, should be allotted to Belgium "by
the will of the inhabitants" !

Aside from Malmedy and Eupen, Belgium
gained the right to connect Antwerp with the
Rhine by canal, and her war debts to the Allies
were transferred to Germany's account. In the
reparations payment, a priority of two and a half
billion gold marks was granted Belgium, repre-
senting the reimbursement of the extortions desig-
nated as war taxes that had been exacted by Ger-
many during the four years of military occupa-
tion. The Belgians also received admirable help
from the Entente Powers in getting back the
machinery, railway rolling-stock, cattle, and other
booty taken out of the country during the war.

Another great disappointment was the failure
of the Peace Conference to recognize the right
of Belgium to retain the territories conquered by
her soldiers in German East Africa. Here Pres-
ident Wilson's mandate idea was used to deny the
Belgian claim. German East Africa was to be
administered as a sacred trust for civilization by
Great Britain. No African annexations were
countenanced by the Treaty of Versailles. By
dint of vig'orous protest and the personal inter-
vention of King Albert, Belgium secured a recti-
fication of frontiers in the Kongo colony. But

374

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

this was a matter of private negotiation with
Great Britain and did not enter into the Peace
Conference bargains.

The credit due to Belgium for having resisted
the Germans in 19 14 and for having carried on
throughout the war, maintaining an army at the
front despite all obstacles, was not denied by the
Entente Powers, and they believed that they had
done her full justice, within the limits of possi-
bility during the Peace Conference and in the
subsequent negotiations. Release from war debts,
priority of reparations payments, and generous
aid in getting back from Germany the loot of the
war can be cited as tangible evidences of gratitude
and good will. The failure to recognize the
equality of Belgium in post-bellum councils ran-
kled, however, and made it easy for politicians to
turn the bitter experiences of the Peace Confer-
ence to their own benefit. Consequently we have
seen in Belgium since the war the evolution of an
unhappy foreigli policy opposed to the political
and economic interests of the country. This
policy has jeopardized, almost nullified, the ex-
cellent results of the marvelous progress toward
rehabilitation accomplished by the entire people in
1919 and 1920.

After the World War all the belligerents sorely
needed peace, the small states even more than the
great powers, and the countries that had suffered

375

1,

EUROPE SINCE 1918

by enemy military occupation most of all. The
Belgian Government had lived entirely on credit
during an exile of four years. The normal reve-
nues of the country had been appropriated by the
enemy. The blockade had disorganized industry.
Belgium's foreign markets had been lost to the
United States, Great Britain, and Japan. The
carrying and transit trade had become wholly dis-
organized. The country was flooded with Ger-
man marks, and was partly looted ; 40 per cent of
its inhabitants were out of work. The years of
German occupation had fostered the Flemish lan-
guage movement, had increased trade-unionism
300 per cent, had introduced the impersonal ele-
ment in production on a large scale, and had
made the people profoundly unwilling to go back
to an almost feudal regime in politics and in many
of the leading industries.

If ever a country needed to have a period of
non-partisan government at home, freedom from
military burdens, and respite from playing the
game of world politics, Belgium was that country.
Economic interests demanded productive activity
on a large scale, unhampered access to world mar-
kets, and the revival of the wealth accruing from
the transit trade through the port of Antwerp.
Partly dependent on the prosperity of Germany,
and geographically inhibited from playing either
Great Britain or France as a favorite, the sensible

376

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

policy for Belgium was speedy reconciliation with
Germany and the reaffirmation of her old neutral-
ity, appealing her case to the League of Nations
and the United States.

Belgium was in no way in the position of
France, and she could not afford to adopt toward
Germany the attitude and the policy of France.
France is a large and virtually a self-sustaining
country, not dependent primarily upon her fac-
tories and mines, and possessing close at hand
vast colonies rich in food-stuffs and raw materials
and capable of being drawn upon for a standing
army. On the other hand, the problem of secur-
ity, in her policy toward Germany, is a prime con-
sideration for France. Belgium is a small and
thickly populated country, wholly dependent upon
her industries and world markets for her exist-
ence. Much of her prosperity comes from the
prosperity of western Germany because of her
geographical position in relation to the Rhineland.
By her own efforts Belgium can never hope to
make herself militarily secure against Germany.
A policy of force, applied to Germany, has the
double disadvantage, then, of hurting Belgium
economically and of compelling her to become
politically dependent upon France. This, in turn,
makes Great Britain antagonistic to her. Her
economic interests, seeing that France is a highly
developed protectionist country, seem to demand a

377

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Rhineland free of French domination, while her
political interests seem to demand steering- clear
of dependence upon French military power for
her security.

This having been said, we can grasp the dangers
confronting Belgium in 1923 as a result of having
followed France blindly and actively into the
joint military occupation of the Ruhr against the
advice and admonition of the most influential
organs of the British press. How this happened
is a tragic and instructive chapter in the history
of Europe since 1918.

Until after the Peace Conference the Govern-
ment, by common consent, was not bothered with
internal political conflicts. The Socialists and
Radicals showed themselves reasonable, not want-
ing to weaken the prestige of the Government in
the peace negotiations, and compromised their
demand for universal manhood suffrage, an eight-
hour day, and sweeping social reforms. They
agreed to a reform bill in April, 1919, by which,
along with universal manhood suffrage, the Cleri-
cal contention for woman suffrage was admitted
to a limited extent. They waived the demand
for an eight-hour law until after the General
Election. The parliamentary election, held on
November 16, 1919, deprived the Clerical party
of its traditional majority. A government was

378

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

formed of ministers of the three great parties,
thus preserving the union sacree formed during
the war. The premiership and ministry of for-
eign affairs, however, remained in the hands of
the Clericals.

The Clericals, alarmed at the sudden growth
in power of the Socialists, decided to gain popular
support by concluding a military alliance with
France and appealing to the people to back this
policy through hatred and fear of Germany. A
secret military treaty was negotiated by the heads
of the General Staff and signed by them as a mili-
tary measure, and was therefore not presented to
Parliament. Contrary to the express stipulation
in Article XVII of the Covenant, the text of this
treaty was not communicated to the secretariat of
the League and has not been published. The old
neutrality, which had won Belgium the support of
Great Britain and the sympathy of the world in
her hour of need, was abandoned in a gamble with
the future. As none in Belgium dared or cared
to take a stand that would seem to encourage
Germany in her evasion of the disarmament and
reparations clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, the
Clericals gained a tactical advantage, which might
have remained with them had not France been
obdurate to the Belgian plea for a less strict tariff
wall. The Francophile party, however, did man-

379

EUROPE SINCE 1918

age to secure from the French an important con-
cession that helped for a long time to obscure the
real issue.

France and Belgium were rivals for the hand
of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. Belgium
after the war asserted that Luxemburg was really
a part of Belgium and that its political incorpora-
tion in Belgium was the logical result of Ger-
many's defeat in the World War. For reasons
that we have given above, the Entente Powers
decided on a referendum. The Luxemburgeois
were asked to chose between a republic and re-
tention of the existing constitution, and between
economic union with France or Belgium. A re-
turn to the German Zollverein was forbidden; so
this did not enter into the question. The people
on October 10, 191 9, voted by more than three
to one to retain their grand-ducal form of govern-
ment and to form an economic union with France.
This victory France used to bargain with Belgium
for the military alliance. When that was con-
cluded, France informed Luxemburg that she did
not desire a customs union. Thus the wish of
the people of Luxemburg and their interests were
sacrificed to a diplomatic deal in which they had
no concern. Luxemburg was compelled to sign
the trade agreement forced upon her and on July
25, 1 92 1, entered the Belgian customs union for
fifty years.

380

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

The Clericals were able to point to this great
success of their policy as offsetting the growing
uneasiness of the Belgians over the efforts of
France to deflect the trade of Alsace-Lorraine
from Antwerp to Dunkirk by discriminatory rail-
way tariffs and by placing an extra tax on com-
modities carried through Antwerp.

But in November, 1921, Nationalists and Cleri-
cals suffered a severe reverse in a new General
Election, although they enjoyed the advantage of
proportional representation. Just before the elec-
tion the withdrawal of the Socialist party from
the Government had broken up the coalition. Lib-
erals and Clericals combined in the election against
the Socialists, invoking the issues of reparations
and security. Despite this powerful combination
and the tremendous influence of an appeal to fear
and hatred in a country that had suffered so hor-
ribly and so recently, the Socialists lost only two
seats in the Chamber, but they gained twenty
seats in the Senate, completing the success begun
in 1 91 9. The new Parliament did not contain a
Clerical majority either in the Senate or the
Chamber.

In 1922 the Flemish language question came
again to the fore, much to the surprise of observ-
ers, who had believed that the German espousal
of this cause during the war and the vigorous
repression of the Activists after the liberation had

381

EUROPE SINCE 1918

banished it for many years.1 So much misinfor-
mation exists concerning the nature and merit of
this question that a brief statement is necessary.
Since 1830, when Belgium broke away from Hol-
land and began her existence as a modern state,
the Walloons, or French-speaking Belgians, have
been in the ascendancy, socially and politically.
They comprise the aristocracy, most of the land-
owners, the political leaders of three generations,
and the clergy. Higher education was given in
the French language, not for love of France, but
in order to prevent the political emancipation of
the lower classes, most of whom were Flemish.
But, with the increase of prosperity and the spread
of education, Flemish-speaking Belgians became
more powerful and began to demand a larger
share in the political life of the country. Edu-
cation in the Flemish language became a political
question, and was looked upon as a means of at-
taining universal suffrage and emancipation from
the strangle hold of the bourgeois, abetted by the
Church. The Walloons deplored it and fought it

1 The members of the Raed van Vlaenderen, who were charged
with making the independence of Flanders the real object of
their demand for equality of language and higher education,
and certain Activists, convicted of assisting the enemy by their
work for this movement during the war, were sentenced to
death for high treason. But they had already escaped to Hol-
land, where they were well received by both the Government
and the public. Dutch newspapers declared that the^e men had
in what they considered a patriotic duty to their own country
not aided Germany, wittingly or unwittingly, but were engaged
of composite race.

382

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

as a subversive movement in the national life,
and declared that it would result in splitting Bel-
gium into two countries.

Then entered the foreign influences! The
Dutch, speaking a language kindred to Flemish
and always willing to see their southern neigh-
bors remain weaker than they, welcomed the
Flemish language movement and have done
everything in their power to foster it. Similarly,
the Germans, regarding the Flemish as a part of
Deutschtum, hailed with glee a movement that
would loosen the cultural hold of the French upon
Belgium. The French, on the other hand, anti-
Clerical at home, showed in the press and on the
platform the deepest sympathy for the Clericals
in Belgium. Gradually, in Germany and France,
what was a purely internal question, provoked
naturally by the rising tide of democracy in Bel-
gium, came to be regarded as a struggle between
Teutonic and French influence in an all-important
strategic corner of Europe.

The World War united the Belgians against
the common enemy, and the Flemish were as de-
termined in their opposition to Germany as the
Walloons. But Germany's invasion of Belgium
was, of course, a tremendous blow to the leaders
of the Flemish-speaking movement. For the
time being, advocacy of what was a perfectly
natural and reasonable thing became playing Ger-

383 ^

EUROPE SINCE 1918

many's game. The demand for higher education
in the Flemish language might well have re-
mained under a cloud for a decade or more after
the war had it not been for the determination of
the Walloon bourgeoisie to use the advantage the
war had given them to stamp out once for all the
Flemish-speaking movement.

When it was proposed that the universities be
separated from the Church and brought under
the control of the state, an attempt was made to
make them by statute purely French. What was
the right of private institutions became, when
these institutions were made public, a challenge
to the language and the culture of a majority
of the people. About 3,000,000 Belgians are
Walloons, speaking various dialects of French;
4,200,000 are Flemish, of whom 3,300,000 speak
only Flemish and understand no French at all.
The proposal was preposterous. So the question
arose again. It died down temporarily when
Belgium joined France in invading the Ruhr.
But it is bound to be revived in the near future
with growing force. The Flemish are too tena-
cious in language and traditions to accept the
superiority of the Walloons, now that they have
the powerful instrument of equal and universal
suffrage.

A growing number of intelligent Belgians, de-
nied social equality because they are Flemish, and

384

BELGIUM AFTER THE WAR

hit hard in their pocketbooks because Belgium
is seconding French foreign policy, are beginning
to contend that devotion to France must not be
considered the test of patriotism. The Flemish
did not hesitate to throw in their lot against the
Teutons during the war. It never occurred to
them not to do so. And now they do not see why
any Walloons, just because they speak French,
should subordinate the true interests of Belgium
to the foreign policy of any other nation, however
close in cultural ties. When you speak to them
of the Flemish language movement being "pro-
German" or of "playing Germany's game," they
grow impatient with you and declare that you re-
fuse to understand. They claim that they are
fighting the great battle of democracy, that their
record during the war should free them for ever
from the charge of pro-Germanism, and that the
triumph of their movement will not disrupt Bel-
gium but will bring about the kind of solidarity
we Americans have attained by organizing a state
in which there is equality of opportunity for all
men.

385

CHAPTER XX

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

HE loss of a war frequently means the loss

of a throne. When Napoleon Bonaparte

found that his enemies were too strong for
him he abdicated and ingloriously fled, leaving his
underlings and his exhausted country to face the
consequences of his military adventures. A hun-
dred years later Wilhelm Hohenzollern followed
the same course and sought safety in Holland.
In both instances the government did not survive
the defection of its chief. In 1870 France be-
came a republic because Napoleon III failed to
fulfil the promise to lead his armies to Berlin.
In 1 918 Germany became a republic because Wil-
helm II failed to fulfil the promise to lead his
armies to Paris. In all three instances, the suc-
cessor government endeavored to throw the blame
of the war upon the defunct government and to
use the change of regime as a plea for moderate
peace terms. France got off easily in 181 5. She
did not do so well in 1870, owing to the triumph
of the military party in the counsels of victorious
Germany. And France, remembering what she

386

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

had suffered less than half a century before, was
not disposed to allow the disappearance of the
"Imperial German Government" in 1918 to enable
the German people to escape the full consequences
of their defeat.

The pre-armistice negotiations had not yet
been completed when the German navy mutinied
at Kiel on November 5. Munich revolted on No-
vember 7. The revolution spread to Berlin on
November 9. The movement was sponsored by
the "Workers' and Soldiers' Council," in which
the Social Democratic party assumed the leader-
ship. A coalition Government was formed, con-
sisting of three representatives each of the
Majority and Minority Socialists, with Herr
Ebert, a member of Prince Max's cabinet, as
Chancellor. In turning over the reins of gov-
ernment to Herr Ebert, Prince Max announced
the abdication of the Kaiser, who had "retired"
to Holland. But the Kaiser did not formally
abdicate until November 28.

The new Government issued a proclamation on
the evening of November 9 declaring that it
would "arrange for an election of a Constituent
National Assembly, in which all citizens of either
sex over twenty years of age will take part with
absolutely equal rights." The state of siege and
the censorship were abolished; amnesty was
granted for all political punishments; and the

387

EUROPE SINCE 1918

promise of the eight-hour day was made, to take
effect not later than January 1. By acquiescing
promptly to the fait accompli at Berlin, Hinden-
burg not only preserved discipline at the front but
also defeated the hopes of the extremists (Sparta-
cists) to make Germany Bolshevist.

At the beginning of 1919, before the Peace
Conference opened, the Spartacists issued their
defiance to the new Government. Rioting, in-
cited by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg,
broke out in Berlin on January 5 and continued
for a week. The Bolshevist revolution failed be-
cause of the hostility of the people and the loyalty
of the army. Its two leaders were killed by
mobs. Freed of this peril, the Government pro-
ceeded to the promised General Election on Janu-
ary 19, in which the remarkable total of 95 per
cent of the electors voted. The Social Demo-
cratic party won 163 out of 421 seats. The Na-
tional Liberals and Conservatives suffered se-
verely; but the defeat of the extremists was more
striking still. On the whole, the composition of
the National Assembly was very much the same
as that of the last Reichstag. The strength of
the Clericals remained about the same. In Prus-
sia, Bavaria, Saxony and Wurtemburg local elec-
tions for constituent assemblies, held during the
same month, resulted in an almost similar major-

388

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

ity for the moderate Socialists and Democrats
combined.

The new German Parliament opened its ses-
sions at Weimar on February 6; and on Febru-
ary 11 Herr Ebert was elected president of Ger-
many. For the premiership (the term prime
minister was substituted for chancellor) Herr
Scheidemann was chosen, and he succeeded in
forming a strong and representative Ministry
containing able men of all parties. Serious
troubles arose in Munich and Berlin in March,
and elsewhere in Germany in the early spring.
But the people kept their heads, and there was
general hope that the new Government would
bring internal peace and secure a reasonable
treaty.

But, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, the
Peace Conference had no intention of letting Ger-
many off easily. Nothing was done from outside
to strengthen the existing Government. Rather
than sign the Treaty of Versailles, Count von
Brockdorff-Rantzau, the foreign minister, who
had gone as head of the delegation to Versailles,
resigned. The Scheidemann cabinet fell. A
new cabinet, less representative than its predeces-
sor, was formed. Out of desperation the treaty
was signed and was ratified by the National As-
sembly on July 9, coupled wtih a unanimous dec-

389

EUROPE SINCE 1918

laration that "in passing the Bill [to ratify the
peace treaty] the House was merely submitting to
the compulsion of superior force." Two con-
siderations primed everything, the lifting of the
food blockade and the release of prisoners of
war.

The new constitution for the German Republic
was passed by the National Assembly on July 31.
It contained a provision giving the right to repre-
sentatives of Austria to sit in the Reichstag, but
not to vote "until after the union of Austria with
the rest of Germany." The Entente Powers de-
clared that this was a violation of Article LXXX
of the Treaty of Versailles and ordered it stricken
out. The Germans answered that self-determi-
nation had been definitely promised as a basis for
the durable world peace, and that this article was
intended only to provide for what would inevi-
tably happen, when the European situation should
become stabilized. But the Entente Powers, re-
fusing discussion, issued an ultimatum; once
more Germany had to bow to force.

Disastrous and humiliating as the experiences
of the eight months after Germany laid down her
arms had proved, the defeat had brought distinct
advantages, through the revolution, to the Ger-
man people. There is no cloud without its sil-
ver lining. The deposition of the Hohenzollerns
had been followed by that of the other kings,

39o

GERMANY FROM 191 8 TO 1923

princes, grand dukes, and princelings of the Ger-
man Empire. It was a great step forward in the
unification of Germany, begun by Napoleon in
1803, and continued by the Prussians between
1849 and 1866. It took a violent cataclysm to
get rid of artificial divisions that had hindered
the development of German national life.

Given the antipathy of the stolid, law-abiding
German for engaging in Bolshevist adventures,
even for the sake of avoiding the humiliation and
disadvantages of a Carthaginian peace, the situ-
tion would not have been hopeless had the victors
adopted a different attitude toward Germany.
The Government might have been strengthened
by sympathy and understanding of its great and
varied problems. The people might have been
assured that if they bent their shoulder to the
wheel and paid for the damages they had
wrought, they would be given a chance of rehabil-
itation. The hatchet might have been buried,
and a chastened Germany welcomed back into the
family of nations.

This was the policy advocated by Premier
Nitti of Italy ; by Lord d'Abernon, British ambas-
sador to Berlin; and by a host of Allied officials,
familiar with conditions in Germany, whom I
have met on the Rhine, in Berlin, Munich, and
elsewhere, since the treaty was signed. The pol-
icy is aptly expressed by Dr. Nicholas Murray

39i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Butler, who said to the Commercial Club of Cin-
cinnati on April 21, 1917:

Never chant a hymn of hate against those who, for the
time being, are worshiping a false god. A hymn of hate
is just as displeasing in English as it is in German. We
are concerned here in a conflict too solemn and too fright-
ful to leave place for hatred ; for if the issue is such as
we wish it to be, we shall lift yet another nation up to the
sublime plane of our own principles, a nation that is
to-day powerfully armed against us.

Instead of helping the German Republic to a
new life, the policy of punishment and fear was
adopted, a policy outlined by Professor Andler of
the Sorbonne pn March 4, 191 7. Said M.
Andler :

Politics may have the right to continue the work of
war against a preying nation, even into the time of peace.
. . . Germany must know that this continuation of war
into peace is possible if she refuses to give the reparations
and pledges which the law demands. There are eco-
nomic methods of breaking the arrogance of the German
agrarians. There are economic methods of breaking even
the new prosperity of the German peasants. There is a
way of checking for ever the forward impulse of Ger-
man industry and of curbing the great industrial capital-
ism, in coalition with the junkers and, at the same time,
the German working-people who have demanded their
share in the casting of the net attempted by big in-
dustries. There are certain forms of the industrial and
agricultural boycott, under which the German people,

392

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

surounded by hostility equivalent to the worst kind of
blockade, would no longer be able to continue the proud
prosperity of its life before the war. The rich classes
would be ruined ; the people could no longer bring up
their superfluity of children, formerly so easily absorbed
by a flourishing industry; the peasants and laborers of
the decimated population would be reduced to emigration.
But they would go, these German immigrants, to countries
forewarned, countries that would no longer permit any
organized espionage, nor any sly infiltration into their
affairs, nor any masquerade of false naturalization under
the Delbriick Law. Then, perhaps, enlightened at last by
the disapproval which would cause to weigh heavily on
them the political system against which they had never
known how to revolt and which they had tolerated in
order to benefit by its military successes, they would
again become the modest Germans of 1848.

The controlling idea of French policy toward
Germany was simply this, that a strong, united,
prosperous Germany would never be a changed
Germany. The proof demanded of a change of
heart on the part of the German people would
be their willingness to become again "the modest
Germans of 1848." The political unity of Ger-
many must at all costs be destroyed. This was a
sine qua non of security for France, as we have
explained elsewhere, and the execution of the
treaty had as its principal object to prevent the
economic rehabilitation and the political unity of
the German peoples in Europe. In reviewing
events in Germany since 1918 we must keep this

393

EUROPE SINCE 1918

fact in mind. No Government, whatever it ac-
complished, would be considered as showing
works meet for repentance. The Reparations
Commission, backed by a strong army, could ask
whatever it wanted to ask — no limits were set
either of time or amount — and thus prevent the
economic and political rehabilitation of Germany.

Herr Bauer, who succeeded Herr Scheidemann
just before the signing of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, formed a cabinet that lasted month after
month only because the German people were
morally and politically dazed. The extreme
Left, demanding Bolshevism, and the extreme
Right, demanding a repudiation of the Treaty of
Versailles, offered hopeless anarchy. Conse-
quently the Center parties combined against a
common danger. The Government could have
been stabilized and could have established its
authority only by securing support from the con-
querors of Germany. Hope of a reasonable set-
tlement of the reparations issue held together the
Bauer Government and enabled it to put down
the reactionary Kapp coup d'eHat in Berlin in
March, 1920. But it was immediately followed
by a Spartacist insurrection in the Ruhr and else-
where, with which Herr Bauer could not cope.
For the Ruhr was in the neutral zone, and the
French refused to permit Germany to use force
there.

394

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

The new cabinet, headed by Herr Miiller, could
not get permission from the Allies, owing to the
intransigeance of the French, to put down the
Communist uprising, which threatened to make
all Germany Bolshevist. In desperation, the
Germans went into the Ruhr without waiting for
permission and succeeded in a few days in sub-
duing the Communists. Invoking an infraction
of the treaty, and acting independently of their
allies, the French seized Frankfort. Some of the
occupying troops were blacks, and a machine-gun
was turned on a crowd in the streets of Frank-
fort.

It is impossible to overestimate the effect in Ger-
many of these events. Public opinion was con-
vinced that France was seeking, not reparations,
but the destruction of Germany. How else ex-
plain her unwillingness to allow the German Gov-
ernment to put down the Ruhr insurrection,
whose success would have rendered any payments
on the reparations account impossible? How
else explain the refusal of France, a fortnight
later, to accept the suggestion of Premiers Lloyd
George and Nitti that the German Government
be invited to confer with the Allied Governments
on reparations and disarmament at San Remo?
We have seen elsewhere how the British and
Italians at San Remo agreed to stiffen their at-
titude toward Germany in return for concessions

395

EUROPE SINCE 1918

to Great Britain in the Near East and to Italy
in the Adriatic.

The Weimar Assembly had outlived its use-
fulness. A new General Election was held on
June 6 to choose the first Reichstag under the
new constitution. While the Center parties still
had a majority, it was greatly reduced, both the
Right and Left gaining. The moderates were
drifting to the two extremes. The Nationalist
vote increased by three millions and the Minority
Socialist vote by two and a half millions. This
made more unstable than ever the authority of
the Government, especially as the Allies at the
Spa conference in July insisted upon the reduc-
tion of the German army to the treaty figure of
one hundred thousand by January 1, 1921. In
vain did the Germans plead that an army of one
hundred thousand would make impossible the
maintenance of authority and the insistence upon
strict fulfilment of the treaty obligations. The
Government pointed out that the Only way to se-
cure the arrest and trial of the "war criminals"
— lists of whom, well up in the thousands, con-
tained the most prominent names in the army and
navy — would be for the Entente Powers to oc-
cupy militarily the whole of Germany and to take
over the running of the country. For no Ger-
man Government would have the means to obey
this behest.

396

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

During the three weeks following the Spa Con-
ference a tremendous effort was made to fulfil the
disarmament clauses of the treaty, which it had
been clearly shown at Spa had thus far been
evaded. More than four thousand heavy guns
and field-guns were destroyed, and a systematic
effort was begun to disarm the civilian popula-
tion. The deliveries of live stock to France and
Belgium were made, and Germany began to at-
tempt to meet the new schedule of coal deliveries,
amounting to two million tons a month. The
Supreme Court at Leipzig was entrusted with
the trial of a few of the minor officers charged
by the victors with violation of the laws of war.
Some of these received prison sentences. The
British representatives at the trials reported that
they had been fairly conducted. The French, on
the other hand, declared that the trials were a
farce. Exasperated and despairing as they were
over the failure to secure any modification of the
Treaty of Versailles, the German people sup-
ported the Government in the efforts it made to
comply with the orders of the Entente Powers.
Food and raw materials the German people
simply had to have to continue to exist. So a
deaf ear was turned to the extreme Nationalists.
The Germans were equally adverse to Bolshe-
vism, whose horrors in Russia were described
minutely in the press.

397

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The year 1921, while not so perilous for the
new Government from within, was marked by
successive steps on the part of the Entente
Powers that rendered still more difficult than
before the return of Germany to economic health
and political stability. On the last day of 1920
the French Government notified the German Gov-
ernment that the disarmament stipulation of the
treaty had not been fulfilled, the principal com-
plaint being that the Civic Guards {Einwohner-
wehr) had not been disbanded in East Prussia
and Bavaria. A few weeks later the Allies is-
sued an ultimatum, fixing eight dates for the ful-
filment of all disarmament demands, using the
occupation of the Ruhr as a threat. The Dis-
armament Commission reported on June 30 that
its work was over.

But the French Government declared that the
surrender of existing war material and the dis-
banding of irregular organizations were only a
part of the disarmament problem.1 Measures

1 French policy is endeavoring to find a means of preventing
Germany from developing her . aerial activities, even after the
five-year period provided for in the Treaty of Versailles has
expired. An aviation convention, between France and Czecho-
slovakia, signed at the beginning of April, 1923, stipulates that
the two nations bar Germans from landing in, or flying across,
their respective countries. Germany retaliated by refusing per-
mission of French and Czechoslovak airmen to land in and fly
across her territory. That she was in earnest in affirming her
right to reciprocity was indicated on May 19, when a French
aviator, having to come down on German territory, was promptly
thrown in jail and his airplane confiscated. When the French

398

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

had to be taken, by continuing the control, to
prevent future infractions of the treaty, and it
was also essential to supervise and limit the manu-
facture of anything in Germany that might con-
ceivably be used for warlike purposes, such as
chemicals, Diesel motors, and a host of other
things. It was maintained that all factories
should be dismantled that might be easily con-
verted into war production. This, of course,
was a question that never could be settled. If
carried out to its logical conclusion, it would mean
the stoppage of all large-scale industrial activities
in Germany, and entail the emigration of from
ten to twenty-five million Germans. At the same
time that disarmament was introduced as a factor
in industrial control, Germany was hit by two
new and crushing blows : the loss of the industrial
portion of Upper Silesia; and the fixing of the
total indemnity at an amount which unbiased ex-
perts of all nations declared meant inevitable de-
fault, followed immediately by the collapse of the
economic life of Central Europe.

During all the reparations discussion, Germany
had always maintained that the retention of
Upper Silesia was indispensible to the fulfilment
of reparations obligations. But the plebiscite, as

protested the Germans replied that they were doing as they
were being done by. The only way such theses can be main-
tained is by the virtual continuance of European nations at war
with one another.

399

EUROPE SINCE 1918

provided for in the treaty, was held on March
20, 1 92 1. The result was an overwhelming vic-
tory for Germany, who received 717,122 votes
against 483,514 for Poland. All the towns in
the plebiscite territory and most of the villages
gave German majorities. All the urban districts
of the central industrial region — Beuthen, Hin-
denburg, Kattowitz, and Konigshiitte — returned
German majorities. This was a tremendous sur-
prise to the Poles, who with the aid of General
Le Rond, head of the Interallied Commission, and
the French army of occupation (my authority
for this statement is the British commissioner
and British and Italian officers), rose in insur-
rection under Korfanty. The Germans tried to
defend themselves and began to introduce volun-
teers in arms from the outside, as the Poles were
doing. But the French Government demanded
at Berlin the immediate prohibition of recruit-
ing for the defense of Upper Silesia. No similar
demand was made at Warsaw.

The Allies could come to no agreement in re-
gard to the disposition of Upper Silesia. The
question was turned over to the League of Na-
tions, which awarded the most valuable industrial
part of the territory to Poland.1 This was the

1 According to the "Annual Register" for 1921 (London),
p. 180, Poland obtained almost exactly half of the two million
inhabitants, although she had less than 40 per cent of the votes,
and her share of the industrial region was far out of propor-

400

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

most severe blow Germany had received since
signing the fateful armistice that ended the
World War. It marked the end of the hope of
Germany getting on her feet and resuming her
place in the family of nations by the payment of
adequate reparations. But the blow to Germany
was not as great as that to Upper Siles;a, which
was artificially divided, leaving large industrial
German towns in the inexperienced hands of Po-
land, against whom they had voted. A new ir-
redentist question was born.

The German cabinet resigned, but Herr Wirth
consented to head a new ministry. He made
clear, however, his attitude and that of his col-
leagues in regard to Upper Silesia in the follow-
ing declaration :

The German Government sees in the territorial and
economic dictates of the Entente not only an Jnjilstice
which the German people has no power to oppose, but
also an infringement of the Treaty of Versailles, an up-
setting of the decision arrived at in Geneva and accepted
by the chief Allied Powers. Against this injustice with
the situation which it creates the German Government
makes the solemn protest in the name of international
law, the shield of the oppressed. It is only on account
of the threats expressed in the note, and the desire to

tion to her voting strength. Poland got 49V2 out of 61 coal-
mines ; all the iron-mines ; 22 out of 37 furnaces ; 400,000 out of
570,000 tons of pig-iron per annum ; 12 out of 16 zinc- and lead-
mines ; -and the three important cities of Konigshutte, Kattowitz,
and Tarnowitz, which had voted by large majorities to Ger-
many.

401

EUROPE SINCE 1918

avoid as far as possible the misery which would other-
wise light upon the Upper Silesian industrial district
that the German Government consents to nominate the del-
egates [for arranging the partition with the Poles] as re-
quired by the dictate of the Powers, without thereby aban-
doning its previous standpoint.

The "economic dictates" were no less disas-
trous than the territorial ones of 192 1. At the
end of January a conference at Paris formulated
a plan by which Germany was to pay 226 billion
gold marks in forty-two fixed annuities from
May 1, 1 92 1, to May 1, 1963, and in addition
forty-two varying annuities each equal to 12 per
cent of German exports. This demand was com-
municated to Germany, with the threat that non-
acceptance would involve the occupation of the
Ruhr. The foreign minister, Herr Simons, told
the Reichstag that these demands were impossible
of fulfilment, infringed the Treaty of Versailles,
foreshadowed the dismemberment of Germany,
and meant the economise enslavement of the Ger-
man people. Germany refused to entertain them.
Seeing that economists the world over, in France
as well as in other countries, regarded the pro-
posal as absurd, the German refusal was not an-
swered by military steps, but a new conference
was called in London, at which the Germans
were to be allowed to submit counter-proposals.
These were unsatisfactory, and the occupation

402

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

of Duisburg, Ruhrort, and Diisseldorf by French,
British, and Belgian troops followed. Germany
protested to the League of Nations, but without
effect.

Appeals were made for intervention at Wash-
ington and the Vatican, but they were received
coldly. The American Government pointed out
that Germany should "at once make directly to
the Allied Governments clear, definite, and ade-
quate proposals which would in all respects meet
its just obligations." There is no doubt that
Germany at this juncture ought to have recog-
nized the inevitability of making supreme sacri-
fices in order to live up to her obligations.
Whether the effort to do this was possible under
existing conditions was another matter. The
cabinet evidently thought that there was nothing
to be done, and presented to President Ebert its
resignation. In the meantime the Reparations
Commission had fixed the indemnity at 132 billion
gold marks, this sum coming due, as provided
for in the treaty, on May 1, 1921 ; and a further
sum of twelve billion gold marks was demanded
for the reconstruction of demolished industrial
works. As a guarantee, the German Govern-
ment was to send immediately into occupied ter-
ritory the gold reserve of the Reichsbank and
other banking-houses.

The Entente Powers issued an ultimatum giv-

403

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ing Germany until May 12, under threat of oc-
cupation of the Ruhr Valley, to accept unre-
servedly all the demands of the Reparations Com-
mission and to obey its orders without delay.
Allied armies were massed on the Rhine with
headquarters at Diisseldorf.

After many efforts a new cabinet was formed
on May 10 under Herr Wirth, a man of great
ability, who gathered good men around him. It
was just in time to accept the ultimatum and
prevent the further invasion of Germany.

But the payment of the first billion marks in
gold caused the mark to depreciate one third in
value. The Wirth Government seemed unable to
raise more money. An attempt to borrow money
abroad failed. In December the Government
told the Reparations Commission that it could not
pay the January and February instalments. The
burden under which Germany was resting was
the payment of two billion gold marks annually
plus an amount equal to 26 per cent of her ex-
ports. In addition she had to face deliveries in
kind, of which the most important was twenty
million tons of coal per annum. She had to find
the money to pay for this coal, and to buy coal
abroad to make up her deficiency resulting from
this loss plus her loss from the alienation of
Upper Silesia. How the reparations crisis de-
veloped to the breaking-point, as a result of

404

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

the developments of 1922, is related in another
chapter.

It is difficult, almost impossible, one must con-
fess, to make a categorical statement or pass a
definitive judgment upon the financial policy of
successive German cabinets since the World War.
In every discussion the assertion of what Ger-
many might have done is based upon the assump-
tion that there existed ability but not the will to
do it. Just as on the Allied side reparations de-
mands have never been based on an impartial
expert estimate of German capacity to pay, and
the Reparations Commission has been political
and not judicial in all its decisions, on the German
side the budget has not taken into account treaty
obligations, and enormous sums seem to have
been spent on railroads and other public work
and on shipping. The industrial life of Ger-
many was not harmed by the war. Her plants
and mines remained intact. She was ready to
resume business; and her industrialists suc-
ceeded, despite all the moral and political con-
fusion related in this chapter, in keeping things
going. There has been virtually no unemploy-
ment, no shutting down of factories and mines,
no suspension of transportation service, in a
word, no outward sign to indicate that the coun-
try was hard up and unable to pay reparations.
On the other hand, one noted in Germany in 1922

405

EUROPE SINCE 1918

an orgy of spending, a feverish industrial activ-
ity, and the incredible return to bustling pros-
perity of ports like Hamburg.1 Export and im-
port trade seemed to be thriving. In a dozen
cities the Government and private concerns, prin-
cipally banks, were undertaking extensive new
building.

One was tempted to ask last summer, "Why
does not Germany pay?" Mutilated and buffeted
about as she has been since 1918, her people cer-
tainly seem to have kept their spirit, and very
largely to have recovered from the starvation
days following the World War. And yet, as is
very clearly shown by the figures, her finances
have become more and more involved until the
Government faces bankruptcy. The first billion
gold marks paid under the arrangement of 1921

1 So far as productive capacity is concerned German shipyards
have more than returned to their pre-war position. The new
Deutschland, just completed, was the largest vessel launched
in the world in 1922. In 1922 Germany was an easy second to
Great Britain in building, her shipyards turned out 187 vessels
of 526,000 tons. Not excepting Great Britain, every country
except Germany turned out a smaller tonnage in 1922 than in
1921. In 1928, if the record of 1922 is kept up, Germany will
have completely recovered from the effects of the war on her
shipping. Similar reports from credible sources have come
to me concerning airplane building. Germany is again leading
the world in production of light motors, and has invented a
new Diesel engine. The activity of Germany in Russia is em-
phasized by the concessions agreement signed at Moscow on
May 18, 1923, by which the German Eastern Relations Society
received 2,000,000,000 acres of forest land and the exploitation
of the Moscow-Rybinsk Railway. German firms lead the field
in export and import privileges in Russia.

406

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

caused a violent downward movement in German
exchange. Each successive payment accentuated
this movement until the paper mark became virtu-
ally worthless. Before the end of 1922 econo-
mists were of the opinion that Germany would
never be able to pay the sums her own experts
suggested in their counter-proposals at Versailles
in 1919.

As an economic problem, the reparations issue
boils itself down to three questions : How much
is Germany's surplus per annum? How much
of that surplus can be taken for reparations?
How can the amount taken be transferred
abroad? This is the practical side of the repara-
tions question. To find the answers it was neces-
sary to take into consideration basic economic
laws and internal conditions in Germany. Only
a healthy goose lays golden eggs. Only a strong
government can tax adequately a nation that has
representative institutions.

Here the moral factors enter in. The people
must have the willingness to make sacrifices, and
must consent to the measures adopted by the Gov-
ernment. In the matter of reparations, for
instance, nothing could be accomplished unless
the German people had impressed upon them that
their moral rehabilitation and the return of Ger-
many to the family of nations on terms of equal-
ity depended upon making the tremendous sacri-

407

EUROPE SINCE 1918

fices necessitated by adopting the policy of paying
the piper for what they had done in the World
War. But we all know that "the people" have to
be shown the path of duty and honor and interest.
Nations are run by men of large means, with the
help of the bourgeois class. Public opinion is
created by the press, pulpit, and platform.

In Germany, ever since the armistice, and much
more so during the last two years, the governing
class has had a desperate fight on its hands simply
to prevent the German people from embracing
one or the other of the mad alternatives of despair,
extreme Nationalism and extreme Socialism.
The governing class has been successful in ap-
pealing to the instincts of order and conservation
of property. But the policy of the Allies has
given the capitalists no incentive or encourage-
ment to make tremendous sacrifices. Good faith
has been lacking on the side of the victors.
Could it be expected on the side of the van-
quished? The bourgeois class was morally sick
and physically exhausted. The insistence of the
Allies in calling for gold payments has ruined
the salaried and investing classes throughout
Germany. Until the invasion of the Ruhr re-
awakened national spirit, the screws put down on
the Germans at French insistence had brought
the country to the verge of social paralysis.

There has been loose talk of rich German in-

408

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

dustrialists evading taxation, and when the
French and Belgians went into the Ruhr it was
confidently expected that these industrialists
would pay up rather than see their sources of
wealth ruined. Public opinion in the United
States, wrongly informed, thought the rich Ger-
mans had been "welching" and would now pay
up promptly. Events have proved this belief
wrong. But a study of the fiscal measures of
the German Government would have demon-
strated the absurdity of the assumption that the
men who had a stake in the Ruhr had not been
paying their taxes and that if they did so they
would furnish ample means for the German Gov-
ernment to pay whatever the French demanded.

The German tax on fixed incomes — salaries,
wages, and pensions — includes directors of com-
panies in the Ruhr and all their high-salaried
staff, officers in the army, and ministers of state.
Laborers pay only 10 per cent, but the tax goes
up to 60 per cent. As it is paid at the source,
evasion is impossible. As for the capitalists, be-
sides the income tax, they have been subjected to
so many different levies that it would have been
impossible for them to escape heavy taxation dur-
ing the last four years. On top of the war profits
tax came the emergency law of 1921, which put
the Government in possession of 65 per cent of
the largest fortunes. The forced loan law of

409

EUROPE SINCE 1918

1922 took 10 per cent of all fortunes above a
million marks, on which no interest was to be
paid for three years. The legacy duty goes as
high as 70 per cent and cannot be evaded by pres-
ents made by the living, which are taxed up to 60
per cent. Increment-values pay 30 per cent, and
public companies are subjected to a foundation
capital tax of 73^ per cent. Then, there are divi-
dend and corporation profit taxes. The figures
would seem to show that the propertied classes
in Germany are paying 90 per cent of the taxes,
and could not, if they would, give more to meet
reparations demands.1

Successive Cabinets since the war have been
criticized for swelling the budget with enormous
sums for railways and public works, for not tax-
ing the people to the limit, for allowing the capi-
talists to send money out of the country. This
policy, or lack of policy, has been interpreted as
proof of dishonesty. But when a business Gov-
ernment, headed by Herr Cuno, the able shipping
man, came into office in 1922, there was no longer
doubt in the minds of impartial observers that
Germany was ready to consent to any practicable
reparations program and to put her house in
order so that it could be carried out. The new

1 These figures, and more, are given in the London "Saturday
Review" (March 3, 1923) to show that German industrialists
have been taxed so heavily since the war that they "have gone
to the limit in payment of what private enterprise can bear with-
out breaking down altogether."

410

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

Cuno Government, backed by Germany's leading
industrialists, received the support of the people
and was ready to talk business with the Entente
Powers.

But all the negotiations proved that the repara-
tions problem was a political and not an economic
one. France wanted reparations if she could get
them; but she wanted security more than repara-
tions. Public opinion in France had come to
believe that the economic recovery of Germany
spelled the ruin of France. Therefore, there
could be peace in Europe only when the Germans
became again "the modest Germans of 1848,"
that is, a disunited people, content to be in a posi-
tion of inferiority, military and economic, to their
neighbors.

France may not have cherished these ideas at
all. But the German people believed that she had
them. So long as the French refrained from
entering the Ruhr, the uncertainty of the situ-
ation demoralized the Germans completely.
They seemed during the latter part of 1922 to be
disintegrating socially, through the ruin of the
bourgeois class. Then came the events of Janu-
ary, 1923, confronting Germany squarely with
the issue, "To be or not to be."

The blow of the Ruhr invasion fell upon Ger-
many despite every effort made at home and

abroad to stave it off. Herr Cuno had raised

411

EUROPE SINCE 1918

postal tariffs twice, and had made a third increase
of 100 per cent on January 1, 1923. On the
same date a second substantial increase was made
in passenger-fares and freight-rates. By remov-
ing the control of rents, which had ruined land-
lords and prevented payment of taxes on land,
Herr Cuno revived an involuntary body of tax
defaulters. Rents now stood at twenty-seven
times the 1914 rate. Taxes on small incomes
rose from 1.6 to 9.3 per cent during 1922, and
were promptly collected because employers used
stamps. But it was estimated at the beginning
of 1923 that these increases, which brought all
prices to pre-war level, while wages were only
half the pre-war level, would necessarily result in
so radical an increase in wage scales that Ger-
many could no longer put cheap goods on world
markets. This would bring about a collapse of
the fictitious prosperity.

Writing before the Ruhr invasion, the Dutch
economist, Dr. Stuart, of the University of
Utrecht, put the root of Germany's problem in
one short paragraph :

The cause of the desperate condition in which Germany
finds herself is the impossibility of balancing her budget.
The key to the inflation of the currency does not lie in the
first place in the indemnity liabilities but in the further
contents of the Treaty of Versailles. The reparations
demands intensify the process of impoverishment and

412

GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

hasten the crisis to which it leads, but they are not the
real cause of the impoverishment and of the crisis. The
real cause is that an amputated Germany has been de-
prived of the possibility of feeding and maintaining its
population of 63,000,000 souls, and the importance of the
crisis which is upon us is that it will prove the awful truth
of the words attributed to Clemenceau : "There are
twenty million Germans too many."

Professor Stuart believes that Germany cannot
exist in her present -condition, even if she pays
no reparations at all ! He points out, with a mas-
terly array of figures, what has been said over
and over again by the foremost British econo-
mists, that the territorial losses of Germany and
the export of reparations coal have made it neces-
sary for Germany to buy more food-stuffs than
she did before the war in outside markets, and,
instead of exporting coal, she has had to buy coal.
On the other hand, she has lost most of her ship-
ping. The means she formerly had of overcom-
ing an adverse balance of trade are gone, and
the adverse balance of trade is greater than ever.

Inflation warded off the collapse. But Ger-
many's depreciated mark has not helped her
abroad, as some people think, because she has
had to buy foreign currencies to meet the ad-
verse trade balance and the reparations payments,
and to pay for food-stuffs and raw materials.

Less than five years have proved that the Treaty

413

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of Versailles has deprived the German people of
the possibility of a normal economic existence.
With the Rhineland and the Ruhr cut off, it is
clear that the Germans can not in the long run do
otherwise than submit to the demands of the
French. But the whole problem remains. Un-
less there is a radical revision of the Treaty of
Versailles, the Germans may have to emigrate in
large numbers or die or fight again.

414

CHAPTER XXI

THE EXPANSION AND DEBACLE
OF GREECE

NONE can understand the tragedy that was
enacted in Asia Minor in 1922, none is
fitted to pass judgment upon it, none has
the right to venture an opinion on the role the
Greeks will still play in the settlement of the Near
Eastern question, without having made a serious
and sympathetic attempt to follow the Hellenic
national movement through the century of strug-
gle that culminated in the collapse of the Greek
armies in Asia Minor and the burning of Smyrna
in September, 1922. The legend has grown that
Greece is the victim of the imperialistic folly of
her greatest statesman, who involved his people
in ambitious dreams of conquest that were impos-
sible of fulfilment. Admirers of Venizelos, to
refute this legend, have launched another legend.
They have tried to make the world believe that
Greece's disasters and humiliation are due to a
pro-German king, supported by an unscrupulous
group of politicians, who almost ruined his coun-
try during the World War through intrigues

415

EUROPE SINCE 1918

with Germany, and whose dramatic return to the
throne in 1920 robbed Greece of the advantages
Venizelos had secured for her in the Treaty of
Sevres.

The rival legends are based upon a threefold
misapprehension of the connection between the
Greek people and the little Kingdom of Greece, of
the relations of the great powers with the King-
dom of Greece and the Greek people, and of the
significance, internally and internationally, of the
Venizelist movement since 1910.

It has been assumed by most writers that the
Kingdom of Greece, as constituted after the War
of Independence, marked the resurrection of the
nation, and was the natural and logical outcome
of a struggle for emancipation. This error came
from a confusion of classical Greece with historic
Greece. Up to this day it has not been realized
in Occidental Europe and America that the Greek
national movement does not have its inspiration
in the ancient glory of Athens and Sparta, of
Corinth and Thebes. The Peloponnesus and At-
tica and the coast-lands of the Gulf of Corinth
never formed a united country, inhabited by a
people enjoying a common nationhood.

The Kingdom of Greece, at the tip of the Balkan
peninsula, was an artificial country, brought into
being after the War of Independence, by a com-
promise of interests and jealousies on the part of

416

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

Russia, France, and Great Britain. The dream
of the Greeks who raised the banner of revolt
against the Turks was the restoration of the By-
zantine Empire, which endured for a thousand
years, and not of the Greece we study about in
school, which never existed as a united country.
National movements are inspired by historic tra-
ditions, nurtured by religion, and grouped around
a language. The connection between the Greek
nation of the nineteenth century and ancient pa-
gan Athens and Sparta is remote. Constanti-
nople and Smyrna have been the foyers of Hellen-
ism. The leaders in the War of Independence,
who started and directed the revolt against the
Turks, came from Epirus, Macedonia, the islands
of the JEgean Sea, and Asia Minor.

The Kingdom of Greece was a makeshift of
European diplomacy. The powers were deter-
mined to maintain, in so far as it is humanly
possible to do so, the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire. They feared the preponderant influ-
ence, each of the others, in the Near East.
Every time a Christian subject people arose
against the Turks, their efforts were directed
toward preventing the success of national move-
ments. They made use of expedients to bolster
up the decaying Ottoman Empire by opposing
where they could, and limiting where they could
not successfully oppose, the separation of Balkan

4i7

EUROPE SINCE 1918

provinces from Turkey. This policy, justified
by the consideration of keeping the peace among
themselves, has been followed in every conference
of European statesmen from Vienna in 181 5 to
Lausanne in 1923. The rising tide of national-
ism in the Balkans, encouraged by the intrigues
of single great powers, has been frowned upon
when the great powers came together to adjust
their rivalry.

More than Serbians, Rumanians, and Bulga-
rians, have the Greeks been victims of this policy.
For the triumph of Hellenism would have meant
not simply the detachment of outlying provinces
but a blow struck at the heart of the Ottoman
Empire. The Greeks have never had a fair
chance, either by themselves or in alliance with
the other Balkan peoples, to work out their own
salvation. At times the great powers have in-
tervened directly; on other occasions they have
aimed to keep the Balkan peoples weak by setting
them against one another. For a hundred years
it has been a game of bullying, bribing, fishing in
troubled waters.

Venizelos was born and won his spurs in Crete
under the Ottoman yoke. He was a leader in
revolutions, and his first experiences with Euro-
pean diplomacy convinced him that the powers
were determined, for the sake of their own in-
terests, to keep his native island under Ottoman

418

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

sovereignty. He left Crete and entered into the
political life of the little kingdom of Greece to
make the kingdom a Piedmont for the unification
of Hellas. The Venizelist movement from the
beginning, therefore, was not interested prima-
rily in the internal affairs of independent Greece.
The Venizelists set out to regenerate and
strengthen the Kingdom of Greece for the pur-
pose of using Athens as the starting-point in a
campaign to emancipate the Greeks still under the
Ottoman yoke. It is impossible to call Venizelos
an imperialist, who conceived grandiose schemes
and wrecked his country trying to put them
through. The Kingdom of Greece was not "his
country." Of the 7,000,000 Greeks in the coast-
lands and islands of the /Egean, hardly more than
a fourth were inhabitants of the kingdom of
Greece. The movement to which Venizelos gave
his name was a movement to liberate as many as
possible of the 5,000,000 Greeks still under Turk-
ish rule, beginning with his own island of Crete.

The ideas of King Constantine and his great
premier were radically antagonistic; they could
not be reconciled. Constantine accepted joyfully
the partial liberation that came through the Bal-
kan wars at the beginning of his reign. But he
looked upon his kingdom as a country whose in-
ternal interests were paramount. His policy
during the war was to steer Greece through diffi-

419

EUROPE SINCE 1918

cult years by maintaining neutrality. The policy
of Venizelos was to involve Greece in the war on
the side of the enemies of Turkey in order that,
as a result of their victory (in which he believed
implicitly), Greece might be enabled to free as
many as possible of the Greeks still under the
yoke of Turkey. When the Allies deposed King
Constantine in 1917, Venizelos brought Greece
into the war to fight for the redemption of the
Ottoman Greeks and the completion of the uni-
fication of the nation.

At the Peace Conference no representative of
a smaller state had a stronger case than Veni-
zelos. In taking territories away from Germany
and Austria and Hungary the Conference went
back to the Middle Ages to allow historic claims.
Ports were taken from the vanquished on ethno-
logical grounds, even when the hinterland was
of another character; and where the inhabitants
were not of the nationality of the claimant state,
ports were taken away on economic grounds, the
self-determination argument being justified by
the hinterland ! In the changes in Europe there
could not be adduced the additional argument of
Venizelos, that liberation from the vanquished
meant security of life and property and a greater
degree of prosperity. And yet the Entente
Powers, at one in their determination to despoil
Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians, hesitated

420

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

a little about the Bulgarians and a long time about
the Turks. In the atmosphere of the Peace Con-
ference none dared say a word in favor of miti-
gating the harshness and injustice of the terms
imposed upon Germans, Austrians, and Hun-
garians. But a strong current in favor of the
Turks set in; and, had there not been the neces-
sity of placating the Serbians to reconcile them
to the Italian demands, the Bulgarians would
have got off more easily than they did.

Venizelos was an outstanding figure among
the statesmen gathered at Paris. He had the ear
of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Wilson. The
American President eagerly enlisted his support
in drafting and forcing the adoption of the
League of Nations Covenant. Orlando, worried
to the breaking-point by the Adriatic question,
intimated his willingness to meet the Greeks half-
way or more in the questions of Epirus and the
Dodecanese. Resisting the evident intention to
put him off until after Germany and Austria were
dealt with, Venizelos succeeded in getting before
the Council of Ten and later the Big Four the
aspirations of Hellenism.

What little measure of success the Greek
premier attained, however, was due to his per-
sonal influence and not to affection for Greece,
nor to gratitude or confidence. French intrigues
against Greece were second only to those of the

421

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Italians, who had a natural reason for opposing
Greater Greece with as much energy as Greater
Serbia. The latter was a more real danger for
Italy, as it would bring the Slavs to the Adriatic ;
but the former was viewed with alarm as a com-
mercial and naval rival in the eastern Mediter-
ranean. Despite the Saloniki revolution and the
tardy entrance of Greece into the war, the French
were not ready to forgive the so-called massacre
of December 1, 1916, when their marines, enter-
ing Athens, were greeted by a rain of bullets.
Powerful influences at work in British as well as
French diplomatic circles, were felt at the Con-
ference, to prevent the despoiling of Turkey at
the expense of Greece, for fear of offending
Mohammedan sentiment in India and North
Africa.

The withdrawal of the Italians in a huff after
Wilson's sensational Fiume declaration gave the
Greeks an unexpected opportunity to anticipate
the formal decision of the Conference on their
claims in Asia Minor. Lloyd George heard that
the Italian Government was planning to send an
expeditionary corps to Smyrna in order that the
Peace Conference might be confronted with a fait
accompli. He persuaded Clemenceau and Wil-
son that the only way of preventing the contem-
plated Italian coup would be to have Greece oc-
cupy Smyrna and the immediate hinterland in the

422

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

name of the Allied and Associated Powers.
Venizelos was summoned suddenly to the Quai
d'Orsay, and the proposal was put before him.
Lloyd George urged its acceptance. Venizelos
agreed. The plans were secretly worked out by
the British, French, American, and Greek mili-
tary advisers.

Greek troops were landed at Smyrna on May
14, 1919, and, after seven weeks of disorders and
some severe fighting, the Greek army was in pos-
session of the Smyrna region and had extended
its occupation along the railway lines to the limits
of the province of Aidin. The press was fed
with lurid stories of massacres by both Greeks
and Turks, for which, on both sides, there seemed
unfortunately to be substantial foundation. The
Greek army asserted that it was fired upon in
Smyrna, and had to retaliate. The soldiers un-
doubtedly got out of hand. But order was
quickly restored. Most of the atrocities in the
province seemed to have been due to the local
native population, Mohammedan and Christian.

After the occupation of Smyrna a whole year
passed before Venizelos was able to get the En-
tente Powers to agree upon the terms of peace
to be imposed upon Turkey. In the meantime,
as is recorded in the next chapter, a formidable
Turkish Nationalist movement was allowed to
get under way, in the interior of Asia Minor,

423

EUROPE SINCE 1918

which added to the difficulties of the negotiations
and began to menace the Greek hold on Smyrna.
The Paris Conference adjourned in November,
1919, without having adopted a draft for the
Turkish treaty. Holders of Turkish bonds, ac-
tual and expectant holders of concessions in Con-
stantinople and Asia Minor, and British and
French officials interested in the Mohammedan
colonies, brought constant pressure to bear to
prevent the partition of the Ottoman Empire.
After a brief visit home, Venizelos was compelled
to return to Europe to participate in the continu-
ation conferences.

Not because they were agreed or believed they
had discovered a satisfactory solution of the
Turkish question, but because it was impossible
to delay decisions further, the Entente premiers
adopted at San Remo, in April, 1920, a draft
treaty that had been over a year in the making.
The Turkish treaty terms had become a matter of
bargaining. France and Italy assented to the
draft, which seemed to favor Great Britain, be-
cause Lloyd George promised to back France in
putting the screws down on Germany both as to
disarmament and reparations and to let Italy set-
tle the Adriatic question by direct negotiations
with Jugoslavia. The Treaty of Sevres, whose
main terms we gave in an earlier chapter, was
signed on August 10, 1920, after much haggling.

424

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

The Nationalists had refused to recognize the
authority of the Constantinople Government to
enter into a treaty in the name of the Turkish
people, and had for several months been defying
both the Sultan and the Entente Powers. They
had attacked the British, who were occupying
and running the Anatolian Railway from Con-
stantinople to Eski Sheir, and had driven the
British troops back to the Gulf of Ismid, within
sight of Constantinople. In this emergency the
Entente Powers called upon Greece, who was to
be the principal beneficiary of the treaty. In
June the Greeks marched northeast from Smyrna
and, in a short campaign, came to the aid of the
British. They occupied Brusa on July 8. The
Turkish Nationalists were also defying the En-
tente in Thrace. After the victories in Asia
Minor, the Greeks moved part of their army
across the ^Egean Sea and occupied all of East-
ern Thrace. King Alexander entered Adrian-
ople on July 25.

By the Treaty of Sevres the Greeks were
awarded Smyrna, with a generous hinterland,
and Thrace almost up to the defenses of Con-
stantinople. Constantinople and the Straits were
to enjoy a special status, under international pro-
tection, with only the nominal suzerainty of the
Sultan. Greece was confirmed in possession of
all the islands of the TEgean, except those at the

425

EUROPE SINCE 1918

mouth of the Dardanelles. Italy retained only
Rhodes, with the proviso that a plebiscite should
be held fifteen years after the cession of Cyprus
by Great Britain to Greece. Since the British
had made no promise to cede Cyprus, however,
the main object of the Greek fight for the Dode-
canese was not attained.

The Treaty of Sevres, had it been maintained,
would have been a great step forward in the
realization of the Greek dream to revive the By-
zantine Empire. What it actually gave Greece
was not, however, as much as the Treaties of St-
Germain, Trianon, and Neuilly had given her
Balkan allies, Serbia and Rumania. If the
awards to Greece were absurdly generous and un-
justified and ought not tio have been made at the
expense of a vanquished nation, what shall we say
of the awards to Serbia, Rumania, Czechoslo-
vakia, and Poland ? If the Treaty of Sevres had
been applied, neither in territory and mineral and
other wealth nor in alien population would Greece
have received nearly as much as these other
smaller states.

Greece's titles, as recognized by the Treaty of
Sevres, were not only more just but better earned
than the titles of the other states under the other
treaties. What Greece received she had actually
conquered by her own efforts. And if the titles

were to prove valid and permanent it would also

426

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

be by her own efforts. As early as March 6,
1920, Venizelos reported to his Government that
no British military support would be available to
keep Greeks either in Thrace or Asia Minor, and
that no assistance could be expected from France
or Italy. If or when the Treaty of Sevres was
signed, the Greeks would have to rely upon them-
selves to enforce it. On June 15, two months
before the Treaty of Sevres was accepted by the
Constantinople Government, Lloyd George again
asked Venizelos if he thought Greece could take
over the territories in question and defend them
from the Nationalists. The Greek premier's
answer was the triumphant march on Brusa
and the expulsion of the Nationalists from
Thrace.

Two days after the Treaty of Sevres was
signed, an attempt was made to assassinate
Venizelos as he was taking the train in Paris
to return to Greece. He was in poor physical
condition when he got back to Athens and found
internal conditions in a very bad state. The
head of a Government cannot be away two years
on an end and have things run smoothly at home.
His subordinates had abused their authority.
There was profound dissatisfaction, which was
not allayed when the Greek people discovered that
the net result of the treaty was the Entente
Powers' permission for Greece to work out her

427

EUROPE SINCE 1918

own salvation in Asia Minor. Several classes in
the army had already been in active service for
eight years. A wave of war weariness swept
the country, of which the partizans of the ban-
ished Constantine took full advantage. When
Venizelos was struggling against these handi-
caps, which were enough to tax his ability and
enthusiasm to the utmost, King Alexander sud-
denly died. His younger brother Paul refused
to return and take the throne. The issue at the
General Election thus became a personal one be-
tween Constantine and Venizelos. The ex-king's
party won at the polls on November 14, 1920.
Venizelos left Greece. On December 19 King
Constantine and Queen Sophie, sister of ex-
Kaiser Wilhelm, returned to Athens.

Before the return of the King the British,
French, and Italian Governments issued a procla-
mation stating that the recall of King Constan-
tine could only be regarded as ratification by the
Greek people of the actions of the King, which
had been hostile to the Allies, and that the recall
of the King would create an unfavorable situa-
tion between Greece and the Entente Powers.
After this proclamation a plebiscite was held on
December 5. There were a million votes, vir-
tually all in favor of the King.

Great Britain, France, and the United States

428

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

refused to recognize Constantine.1 Notwith-
standing- the fearful handicap the return of Con-
stantine imposed upon Greece in her struggle to
retain what the Treaty of Sevres had given her,
Constantine persisted in his determination to re-
main on the throne. Only after the revolution
that followed the collapse of the Greek armies in
Asia Minor in September, 1922, did Constantine
withdraw. Then he abdicated in favor of his
oldest son, George, who had recently married
Princess Elizabeth of Rumania, and went into
exile in Sicily, where he died a few months later.

Speculation as to what would have happened in
Greece had Venezelos remained in power is profit-
less. Therefore, we shall limit ourselves to the
story of what actually happened.

On January 4, 1921, in the absence of all Lib-
eral or Venizelist members, King Constantine
opened the newly elected Chamber of Deputies
and stated that the war in Asia Minor would con-
tinue. As a matter of fact, the Greeks could not
have withdrawn; and at the same time, in order

1 Italy welcomed the evidences of internal weakness and sui-
cidal political strife indicated by the return of Constantine.
The vote against Venizelos in November and the plebiscite in
favor of the King in December helped the Italian Government
to find the excuse that had been sought ever since San Remo
to refuse to ratify the Treaty of Sevres and to recognize the
agreements made between Venizelos and the Italian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. For fear that the Greeks might recover their
senses, Italy promptly recognized Constantine.

429

EUROPE SINCE 1918

not to withdraw, they had to go forward. On
January 10, the Greeks advanced over the moun-
tains to Biledjik on the Anatolian Railway, cutting
off Angora from the Bosphorus. In a conference
at London on March 9, the Athens Government
rejected a proposal of the British and French
Governments to modify the Treaty of Sevres by
the Greek evacuation of Asia Minor in return for
Turkish Nationalist assent to the cession of
Thrace to Greece. A new offensive was launched
on March 23, which succeeded in giving the
Greeks possession of two important junction-
points of the Anatolian Railway, Afium-Karahis-
sar and Eski She'ir, which they were afterward
compelled to abandon. In the early part of July,
however, they returned to the attack, reoccupied
the ground lost in the spring, and won decisive
victories at Kutahia and Eski She'ir. Encouraged
by these victories, the Greek General Staff made
the mistake of believing that it was possible to
march on to Angora and put an end to Turkish
resistance. The offensive was renewed in the
middle of August, was carried along the Sakaria
River nearly to Angora, but could not be main-
tained on the last lap of a march that had cost
them dear. The Greeks retreated to positions
east of the Anatolian Railway and dug them-
selves in for the winter in strong natural posi-
tions.

430

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

Several efforts were made to mediate between
Greece and Turkey by the Supreme Council, the
League of Nations, and the Conference of Am-
bassadors. The last proposal, formulated in
March, 1922, was virtually the same as that of
March, 1921, i.e., that the Turks should have
Asia Minor, while the Greeks should keep Thrace.
In recognition of the growing power of the Turk-
ish Nationalists, the Entente Powers offered modi-
fications in the Sevres provisions concerning Con-
stantinople and the Straits that would salve the
pride of the Turks and leave them nominal mas-
ters in their own house. The Turks were also
offered membership in the League of Nations.

The successive efforts of the Entente Powers
to bring about a peaceful liquidation of the Greek
venture in Asia Minor by a voluntary revision of
the Treaty of Sevres proved that the San Remo
agreement of 1920 had failed, and that the vic-
torious powers, unable to arrive at an understand-
ing, preferred to sacrifice the aspirations of Hel-
lenism and to allow the Turks to go unpunished
rather than risk seeing one of themselves best the
others in a division of the Turkish spoils. Other
factors also entered into the Near Eastern ques-
tion to make it as complicated in 1922 as it had
always been. The role of Russia at Angora was
disquieting. The Turkish Nationalists were men-
acing Great Britain and France in Mesopotamia

43i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

and Syria. London was suspected by Paris and
Rome of planning to use the Greeks as agents to
hold Western Asia Minor and the Straits in the
interest of the mistress of the seas. French
statesmen felt that backing the Turks might prove
to be an excellent means of keeping the British in
line to continue putting the screws down on Ger-
many. In vain the Greek Government protested
that the Treaty of Sevres was an integral part
of the Paris settlement and as sacred as the other
treaties. Had not the Greeks acted in good faith
in going into Asia Minor at the request of the
great powers? Could they be expected to with-
draw and leave the Anatolian Christians, the Cir-
cassians, and the anti-Kemalist Turks, who had
cooperated in the occupation, at the mercy of the
Angora Nationalists?

From a purely military point of view the Greeks
were in an excellent position in Asia Minor. Be-
hind most of their front lay railway lines. They
had had a year in which to fortify their front and
organize lines of communication. The Turks
had not molested them. They had been able to
pick out the strongest natural defenses. But they
had no money. The boycott of the Constantine
Government prevented them from contracting
loans or obtaining large credits for supplies
abroad. They knew that France and Italy had
made treaties with the Turks and were supply-

432

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

ing them with artillery and munitions. They
knew, too, that Soviet Russia was giving sub-
stantial aid to their enemies. France and Italy
did not allow the Greeks to establish an effec-
tive blockade of the coast of Asia Minor. The
blockade rules which the French and Italians had
proclaimed in the Mediterranean, when they were
fighting Turkey, and had imposed upon Greek
commerce, were declared intolerable when Greece
tried to use them to prevent the Turks from re-
ceiving war materials.

The Athens Government grew desperate. Ev-
ery month the Turks were becoming stronger,
and yet it seemed impossible to order the evacua-
tion of Asia Minor. The British Government,
and British public opinion in general, encouraged
the Greeks but only with words ! In July the
Greek Government transferred 40,000 of its best
troops from Asia Minor to Thrace, and massed
them, together with the Thracian army of occupa-
tion, near Constantinople. A note was sent to
the Entente Governments, demanding permission
to occupy Constantinople. It was a grand-stand
play, conceived as a supreme effort to avert im-
pending disaster. The Entente Powers refused
to accede to the Greek request.

At the end of August, realizing that they could
not last through another winter in their positions
east of the Anatolian Railway, the Greeks pre-

433

EUROPE SINCE 1918

pared to fall back on a line within the limits of
the zone denned in the Treaty of Sevres. The
Turks got wind of the plan and attacked at the
most vulnerable point in the Greek front, where
the railway from Smyrna joined the Anatolian
Railway at Afium-Karahissar. Panic started and
spread, as panic always does. The Greeks be-
came demoralized and abandoned their strong
positions without fighting. They retreated to the
^Egean coast, burning towns and villages as they
went. Most of the army got away to the TEgean
islands and to Thrace. But they lost all their
artillery and stores, and left the native Christians
and Mohammedan Circassians, who had made
common cause with the Greeks, to the mercy of
the Turkish Nationalists. The demoralization
of the Greek army was not so great as that of the
Italian army at Caporetto, and, in numbers of
troops affected, no greater than that of the Brit-
ish and French in the last German offensive in
France in the spring and early summer of 1918.
Had there been reserves to fall back upon, had
there been strong allies to come to the rescue, the
Greeks could easily have retrieved their fortunes.
We must remember this in judging them. But
years of facing great odds alone, with no hope of
a change, had ended by taking the heart com-
pletely out of them.

The events of September, 1922, proved to be a

434

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

greater blow to Hellenism than the fall of By-
zantium in 1453 or any other of the vicissitudes
suffered by the Greeks in the original Turkish
conquest of Asia Minor and the Balkans; for
the Turks resolved this time to stamp out Hellen-
ism for good and all. The burning of Smyrna
was accompanied by wholesale massacres. The
expulsion of the Greeks from Asia Minor and
Eastern Thrace followed the signature of an ar-
mistice at Mudania on October 10. The negoti-
ations were carried on between the Entente
Powers and the Turks. Greece, by her defeat,
had been eliminated and was forced to accept the
loss of Eastern Thrace in order to secure the ar-
mistice.

Before the Mudania Conference, when it was
learned that the Entente Powers had sent a note
to Kemal Pasha, leader of the Turkish National-
ists, offering to restore Eastern Thrace to Turkey
as one of the conditions of peace, a revolution
broke out among the Greek soldiers who had
flound refuge on the island of Mytilene. The
troops demanded that they be escorted to Athens.
Under the joint leadership of Colonels Gonatas
and Plastiras, they arrived in Greece on Sep-
tember 26, forced the abdication of Constantine,
and accepted Crown Prince George as King, on
condition that he promise to regard his father's
abdication as final and to place the Government

435

EUROPE SINCE 1918

in the hands of the revolutionary committee they
had formed. The first act of the revolutionaries
was the arrest of former premiers and ministers
whom they regarded as responsible for the Asia
Minor disasters. These, they asserted, would be
tried for high treason. The new masters of
Greece declared that they would not give up East-
ern Thrace. Only on this condition, however,
could they secure the intervention of Venizelos,
who knew the futility of attempting to renew the
war and further indispose the Entente Powers.

After the evacuation of Eastern Thrace in
October, Venizelos consented to represent Greece
at the new peace conference, which was to open
at Lausanne on November 20. The evacuation
of Adrianople, which began on October 15, cre-
ated immediate difficulties for the new Govern-
ment. Had it not made the revolution for the
avowed purpose of saving Thrace? Martial law
had to be proclaimed. Then, to appease popular
excitement, the revolutionary leaders began the
investigation of the causes of the disaster. A
committee reported on November 8 that all the
anti-Venizelist Governments, from 191 5 to 1922,
were guilty of high treason because they had ali-
enated the sympathies of the Entente Powers
during the World War and since, because they
had blindly supported Constantine, because they
had neglected to comply with the requests and

436

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

demands of the Entente Powers in regard to Asia
Minor, because they had concealed from the peo-
ple the successive warnings as to the impracticabil-
ity of holding their foothold in Asia Minor, and
because they had permitted an occult government
to exist in Greece under Prince Nicholas, in de-
fiance of the constitution. Another brother of
the ex-king, Prince Andrew, was arrested on the
charge that he was immediately responsible for
the recent disaster. The report demanded that
six ex-premiers and ex-ministers, Admiral
Goudas, and General Hadjianestis, commander-
in-chief of the Greek army in Asia Minor, be
tried for high treason before a special court
martial.

Greek statesmen, including Premier Krokidas,
who had consented to serve under the revolution-
ary Government, begged that before the sentence
was announced there be granted right of appeal
to a National Assembly, which was to be elected
in the near future. Krokidas resigned when the
plea was rejected. On November 25 Colonel
Gonatas, unable to get a civilian to take the office,
assumed the premiership himself. Three days
later former Premiers Gounaris, Stratos, and
Protopapadakis, former Foreign Minister Bal-
tazzi, former War Minister Theotokis, and Gen-
eral Hadjianestis were condemned to death and
fined sums ambunting to the confiscation of their

437

EUROPE SINCE 1918

private fortunes. A few hours later they were
shot. Prince Andrew escaped the death sen-
tence; but he was banished after military degra-
dation.

The execution of the former ministers aroused
a storm of protest in Greece and abroad. The
British minister left Athens, and the Greek min-
ister at Washington cabled his resignation. But
Colonel Plastiras, Chief of the Revolutionary
Committee, not only assumed responsibility, in
the name of the committee, for what had hap-
pened, but declared that all persons, civilian and
military, connected with the Asia Minor disas-
ter would be brought to trial. He denied the
charge that the court martial was not a proper
means of decreeing punishment. He announced,
moreover, that the General Election would be
indefinitely postponed.

It was feared that the political executions, com-
ing at the beginning of the Lausanne Conference,
would increase the already unfavorable interna-
tional situation of Greece. But Venizelos stuck
at his task, fought hard to save what he could,
and through both periods of the conference, last-
ing weary months, he watched for every oppor-
tunity to profit by the resentment aroused among
all the Entente delegates by the unreasonableness
and insolence of the Turks. Other patriotic
Greeks abroad, following the example of Veni-

438

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

zelos, accepted and supported, even where they
could not defend, the Revolutionary Committee.
They felt that the debacle of Hellenism would
be rendered complete if there were a new out-
break of civil war in their unhappy country.
There had been too much of political strife during
the years of miraculous expansion.

The two preoccupations of Greece in 1923 have
been the care of refugees and the reorganization
and strengthening of the army.

The refugee problem became acute immediately
after the retreat. Hundreds of thousands of
Greeks, Circassians, and Armenians, and a large
number of non-Kemalist Turks fled pell-mell to
the coast, overcrowded Chios, Mytilene, and
Samos, and flowed over to Athens and Saloniki in
a never ceasing stream. To these were added
refugees from Thrace. Then came the Chris- *
tians expelled from the Black Sea littoral. The
Turks had retained, and deported into the in-
terior for labor battalions, the able-bodied men
and boys. The Greek refugee situation developed
much the same as the earlier Armenian problem
— countless thousands of women, children, and
old people, incapable of earning their own living,
even were there a chance to do so.

As virtually all the Christian population of
Asia Minor and Thrace had fled or had been
exiled, Greece within a few weeks saw her popu-

439

EUROPE SINCE 1918

lation increased by between 1,200,000 and 1,300,-
000 wholly dependent immigrants, bringing dis-
ease with their poverty. They came at the be-
ginning of winter. All needed shelter, food,
clothing, bedding, and medical attention. The
problem was appalling, and it still threatens to
overwhelm Greece in the summer of 1923.
There is little hope of these refugees' being able
to return to their homes. How can a country,
not self-supporting, bankrupt, and without credit
abroad, take care of a 20 per cent increase in its
population, not of able-bodied men, but of de-
pendents? Charity, nbtably that administered
by the Near East Relief, has kept the refugees
from starving and freezing. It cannot continue
indefinitely, however, and very many Greeks be-
lieve that salvation lies in a new test at arms with
the Turks. They are by no means convinced of
the military superiority of the Angora National-
ists, unless they are helped, as they were last
time, from the outside. The Greeks still have
their fleet, which gives them mastery of the sea.
If not interfered with, they can blockade the
Turks.

The lesson ,of the protracted and fruitless ne-
gotiations at Lausanne seems to be that force
alone counts for anything in international rela-
tions. Throughout the discussions the attitude
of the Turks was that of defiance, and only mili-

440

THE EXPANSION OF GREECE

tary threats brought them to a compromise. The
best argument Venizelbs had was the fact that
150,000 Greeks were still under arms, most of
them in Western Thrace, with their morale re-
stored, and ready to try again. This prevented
the Turks from prodding him too hard, and this
alone made the Entente Powers willing to con-
sider that, despite the debacle of 1922, there
might still be a promising future for Hellenism,
and some profit to be had for friends of the
Greeks.

441

CHAPTER XXII

THE TURKISH NATIONALIST
MOVEMENT

NO armies were so decisively defeated in the
closing months of the World War as those
of Turkey. The British retrieved their re-
verses in Mesopotamia, while General Allenby, in
the Palestinian campaign, succeeded in striking
a death-blow to Turkish military domination over
the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman
Empire. When it was realized at Constantinople
that Germany had come to the end of her re-
sources, Talaat and Enver, who had been in the
saddle throughout the war, resigned and got
away. A new cabinet immediately entered into
negotiations for an armistice, but tried to delay
capitulating in order that Turkey might have the
advantage of the conditional surrender Germany
was maneuvering to make. This proved to be
impossible. On October 30, 1918, the Sultan's
delegates agreed at Mudros to Allied occupation
of the Straits and Constantinople, as well as of
the Taurus tunnel system on the Bagdad Rail-
way, and to the immediate demobilization of the
Turkish army, the surrender of the fleet, the

442

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

withdrawal of Turkish armies from the Cauca-
sus, Persia, and Cilicia, and the capitulation of
Turkish garrisons and officers with indigenous
troops in Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Trip-
olitania.

After the armistice British armies entered the
Caucasus, penetrated Mesopotamia to Mosul, and
passed through Syria into Cilicia. Entente fleets
appeared in the Bosphorus; garrisons were dis-
embarked for Constantinople; and Allied contin-
gents took possession of the Dardanelles forts.
The British extended their control from the Asi-
atic side of the Bosphorus along the Anatolian
Railway to Eski Sheir.

A prompt peace settlement, such as was im-
posed upon Germany, would have compelled the
Turks to yield to every demand of the Entente
Powers. But, as we have seen elsewhere, sus-
picions and rivalries of the Entente Powers de-
layed the presentation of a treaty to Turkey.
Nearly two years passed before the Turks were
forced to sign the Treaty of Sevres. In the
meantime, the Entente Powers had invited Greece
to occupy Smyrna and to drive the Turks out
of Thrace. The Greek expedition to Asia Minor
met with opposition from the beginning, and to
break it down the Greeks were gradually drawn
into the interior of the country. Syria and Cil-
icia were handed over to the French, and the Brit-

443

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ish were compelled to abandon the Caucasus and
northern Persia to Soviet Russia.

Before the summer of 1920 there was already
a wide divergence of opinion on the Near Eastern
question among the Entente Powers, and the
Turks, under Mustafa Kemal Pasha, had reor-
ganized an army and were defying the Sultan's
authority in the interior of Asia Minor. These
significant changes did not deter the Entente
Powers, however, from rejecting the pleas of the
Turks for mitigation of the peace terms in much
the same language they had used to Germany a
year before.

In view of what has happened since, it is in-
teresting to observe that the Supreme Council, in
June, 1920, told Turkey that the Allies were quite
unable to agree that Turkey had any less respon-
sibility for the war than the countries to which
she had been allied. In fact, they declared that
she was "guilty of peculiar treachery to Powers
which for more than half a century had been her
steadfast friends," and that she had entered the
war "without the shadow of excuse of provoca-
tion." The Allied note went on to say:

Not only has the Turkish Government failed to pro-
tect its subjects of other races from pillage, outrage, and
murder, but there is abundant evidence that it has been
responsible for directing and organizing savagery against
people to whom it owed protection. For these reasons the

444

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

Allied powers are resolved to emancipate all areas in-
habited by non-Turkish majority from Turkish rule.
It would neither be just nor would it conduce to lasting
peace in the Near and Middle East that large masses of
non-Turkish nationality should be forced to remain under
Turkish rule. The Allies can make no modification in
the clauses of the treaty which detach Thrace and Smyrna
from Turkish rule, for in both areas the Turks are in a
minority. The same considerations apply to the frontiers
fixed between Syria and Turkey. For the same reason
they can make no change in the provisions which provide
for the creation of a free Armenia within boundaries
which the President of the United States will determine
as fair and just.

The Entente Powers pointed out that they had
been generous in leaving the Turks in Constanti-
nople and that, "in view of the misuse made by
the Turks of their power in the past, the Allies
have had grave doubts as to the wisdom of this
step." A threat and ultimatum ended the dis-
cussion :

If the Turkish Government refuses to sign the peace,
still more, if it finds itself unable to reestablish its author-
ity in Asia Minor, or to give effect to the treaty, the Allies,
in accordance with the terms of the treaty, may be driven
to reconsider this arrangement, by ejecting the Turks from
Europe once and for all.

The sudden change in the attitude of the En-
tente Powers toward Turkey, beginning only a
few months after these words were uttered, dem-

445

EUROPE SINCE 1918

onstrates their insincerity. They were not in-
spired by moral indignation, by a desire to lib-
erate subject peoples, or by a knowledge of or
belief in the ability or willingness of the three
Powers, acting together, to coerce the Turks.
The British hoped that the Greeks by their own
efforts would be able to crush the rising Turkish
Nationalist movement. The French thought that
if they yielded to the British, and agreed to give
the Greeks a chance, they would have British ap-
proval and probably British aid in the policies
they wanted to adopt in regard to Turkey.

Beyond the reach of the guns of the Entente
fleets, a group of virile Turkish military men,
which included most of the officers of the partly
disbanded army, was issuing manifestos, appeal-
ing to the people against the Government and
warning the Sultan and his ministers not to sign
the Treaty of Sevres. When the Turkish dele-
gation at Paris put their names to the treaty, the
Turkish Nationalists pronounced it null and void,
just as the German junkers have pronounced the
Treaty of Versailles null and void. The differ-
ence between the Turkish and German National-
ists is that the latter have not yet come to the
point of repudiating their Government and start-
ing a revolution. The Turkish Nationalists sev-
ered their allegiance to the Constantinople Gov-
ernment and held elections for a National As-

446

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

sembly. This body met at Angora, formally
denounced the Treaty of Versailles, and set forth
their program in a National Pact, for the reali-
zation of which they swore solemnly to fight, and,
if necessary, to die.

Because this document has been the "irredu-
cible minimum" in the negotiations with the
powers at Lausanne, it is important to have a
clear knowledge of its terms. The Pact contains
six articles :

1. The fate of the portion of the Ottoman territory
which was under enemy occupation at the time of the con-
clusion of the armistice in October, 1919, will inevitably
be regulated by plebiscite, the territory in question being
inhabited by an Arab majority. Those portions of the
Ottoman territory within as well as outside the armistice
line which are inhabited by Ottoman Mussulman major-
ities, united among themselves by religion and racial ties
and by a common ideal as well as by sentiments of mu-
tual respect, constitute an indivisible whole, division
whereof is impossible, either in theory or in practice.

2. We accept a new plebiscite, if necessary, for the
three districts, Kars, Ardahan and Batum, which joined
themselves to the mother-country by vote of their inhab-
itants just as soon as they recovered their liberty.

3. The adjustment of the question of Western Thrace,
which has been disputed with Turkey up until the con-
clusion of peace, will be made the subject of a plebiscite
executed with the fullest liberty to its inhabitants.

4. The safety of Constantinople, headquarters of the
Mussulman caliphate and capital of the Ottoman Empire,

447

EUROPE SINCE 1918

as well as that of the Sea of Marmora, must be assured.
This condition once complied with, Turkey must then treat
with the Allied authorities the subject of opening the
Straits to world commerce.

5. The rights of minorities will be guaranteed by us
in the hope that the same rights will be granted to the
Mussulman populations in contiguous territories. The
question of guarantees will be subject to the same laws
and principles which have been established between the
Entente and its enemies and between the Entente and
some of its allies.

6. Our highest and most vital principle is to have
entire independence, with which, as in the case of all other
countries, we shall be able to develop ourselves both so-
cially and economically. We are opposed to all restric-
tions which are but obstacles to our political, judicial, and
economic development. The terms of the payment of our
debts, which will certainly be settled, must not be contrary
to the spirit of this principle.

The terms of the Pact are in essence a decla-
ration of independence from foreign control.
They ignore the fact that Turkey lost the war,
and should therefore expect to share the humili-
ations of her allies by being subjected to penalties
and indemnities. As the Entente Powers have
discovered at Lausanne, the Angora Government
repudiates responsibility for the World War, and
the logical consequences of defeat. The Turks
who gathered for the adoption of a program of
resistance to the Entente Powers and Greece in
the autumn of 1920 assumed that their revolu-

448

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

tionary government was the rightful heir to all
the titles and privileges of the old Ottoman Em-
pire, but to none of its treaty obligations and its
responsibilities in connection with the lost war
or the horrible massacres and deportations of
Greeks and Armenians during the war.

The four territorial articles of the Pact in no
sense constitute a confession of the altered posi-
tion of Turkey because of her defeat. The Ara-
bic-speaking portions of the Empire are not given
up. They are to decide their future by a plebis-
cite, regardless of the mandates of the Versailles
Treaty and the League of Nations. The result
of the plebiscite might well be a decision to re-
main within the Ottoman Empire. Aside from
the Arabs, there is no question of a plebiscite,
except for the three provinces of the Caucasus
which Turkey held in the last year of the war.
"Portions of the Ottoman territory within as
well as outside the armistice line . . . constitute
an indivisible whole." This means the flat de-
nial of Kurdish, Armenian, and Greek aspira-
tions. Article 3 calls into question the line
agreed upon in the Treaty of London with the
Balkan states in May, 191 3. Article 4 admits in
regard to the Straits only what had always been
an international privilege, the "opening of the
Straits to world commerce."

Article 5, dealing with minorities, establishes

449

EUROPE SINCE 1918

the principle of reciprocity. The Turks hope for
reciprocal guarantees with neighboring states,
and they refuse to assent to any more specific
guarantees than those the Entente Powers cause
to be inserted in the treaty with enemy states and
the smaller countries that were to profit by the
dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire.

The Nationalists rightly call "our highest and
most vital principle" the abolition of the capitula-
tory regime that had been in force, in the rela-
tions of Turkey with Occidentals, since the be-
ginning of the Empire. Article 6 asserts the
intention of the Turks to insist upon full eco-
nomic and social independence in their own coun-
try, which means the abolition of the capitula-
tions, tariff control, and the mortgage of the
Imperial Ottoman Debt upon certain monopolies
and revenues.

How was a defeated country, whose capital
and regularly constituted government were at the
mercy of the enemy, whose principal port and the
railways leading to it were in the hands of the
Greeks, and which had no fleet to challenge the
Greek and Allied mastery of the sea, to realize
this ambitious program? The declarations of
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his followers seemed
to be absurd, in view of the military situation.
The Nationalists were well officered, and the
Turks are natural fighters. But they had no ar-

450

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

tillery and no airplanes, and lacked both trans-
portation facilities and factories to manufacture
war materials. Certainly the Angora Govern-
ment could hope for no miracles of valor to off-
set the handicap of a lack of the tools of modern
warfare. The era had passed when the willing-
ness and ability to fight and the possession of
fighting men could influence, without other con-
tributing factors, the course of history. Had the
Turks been treated by the Entente Powers as the
other enemies were treated, the Angora move-
ment would have had no significance, and the
National Pact would never have been important
enough to be quoted in full in an English book.
The star of Turkish Nationalism arose and at-
tracted attention, and was able finally to twinkle
impudently at every one at Lausanne, because
Russia, France, and Italy were quick to see the
opportunity the Mustafa Kemal Pasha group af-
forded for advancing their own interests in the
Near East and in world politics generally.

Russian emissaries appeared at Angora soon
after the movement started, and the Nationalist
leaders found how much they really had in com-
mon with the Bolshevists: bitter hatred of the
capitalist countries whose exploitation of Turkey
had led to her enslavement and virtual dismem-
berment. The Turks joined the Bolshevists in
invading Armenia. Russian Armenia had to ac-

45i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

cept a Soviet form of government, and renounce
the hope of annexing any part of the Ottoman
Armenian provinces. The Turks recognized So-
viet Armenia and the Soviet Republic of Adjaris-
tan. The latter were nothing more than the port
of Batum and its immediate hinterland. The
Turkish frontier was twelve miles from Batum,
which became the principal port for Moscow aid
to Angora.

With Russian help the Nationalists were able
to attack the French in Cilicia. The French
were driven out of Marash, and, after a pitched
battle on the Bagdad Railway, north of Alex-
andretta, the French retired from Cilicia alto-
gether, leaving to the mercy of the Turks the
Armenians, whom they had formed in battalions
to help them fight, and abandoning enormous
war supplies of every kind. Charges have been
made that the French left these supplies pur-
posely, and also that they abandoned the Arme-
nians when the military situation did not neces-
sitate their doing so. Color was given to the
accusation by the fact that the French were al-
ready in secret negotiations with the Nationalists
and by the statements later made at Angora by
M. Franklin Bouillon that the Nationalists had
reason to appreciate the good will France had
shown in Cilicia.

The Nationalist successes in the Caucasus and

452

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

Cilicia occurred in March, 192 1. One month
earlier the Angora Government had sent a dele-
gation to the London conference, authority of
which was recognized by the Constantinople
Turks, who joined their delegation with that
of Angora, and acknowledged the Nationalist
leader, Bekir Sami Bey, as head of the joint dele-
gation. Little progress was made at the London
Conference, as we have seen elsewhere, in the
solution of the Near Eastern question. But
Bekir Sami Bey concluded at London secret
treaties with France and Italy. The Italian
treaty gave Italy important economic concessions,
and promised the withdrawal of Italian troops
from Turkish territory, in return for Italian sup-
port to secure the restitution of Smyrna and
Thrace to Turkey. The Angora assembly was
not satisfied with the French treaty and refused
to ratify it, pending the outcome of the military
operations in Cilicia.

On March 16, 1921, the Nationalists concluded
a treaty with Soviet Russia, according to which
each contracting party pledged itself not to rec-
ognize any treaty or other agreement imposed
upon the other party by force, and the Russians
promised to ignore the Constantinople Govern-
ment. On July 30 the Angora National As-
sembly ratified by 202 votes against 1 the treaty
with the Bolshevists.

453

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Angora's relations with Moscow, and the hu-
miliation inflicted upon her in Cilicia and by the
refusal of Angora to ratify the treaty concluded
in London, did not deter France from continuing
to seek favors at Angora. M. Franklin Bouil-
lon, who was president of the Foreign Relations
Committee of the French Senate, made two visits
to Angora in June and September. The second
proved more fruitful than the first, for in the
meantime the Greeks had won notable victories
and had extended their occupation in Western
Asia Minor. It is a sad commentary upon the
fundamental heartlessness and cynicism of inter-
national politics that France, who profited greatly
in Syria by the Greek victories of the summer
of 1 92 1, should have used the advantage they
gave her to help her enemies against her ally.

On October 20, 192 1, Mustafa Kemal Pasha
and M. Franklin Bouillon signed a treaty, which
was ratified by the French Government ten days
later. The convention was elaborate. France
not only gave back to the Nationalists Cilicia
(which she had received from Great Britain)
without any stipulation for the protection of the
unfortunate Armenians to whom the French
authorities in Cilicia had appealed three years
earlier to help France against the Turks, but re-
turned to Turkish rule a strip of northern Syria
that had been included in the mandate entrusted

454

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

to France by the League of Nations. The sec-
tion of the Bagdad Railway up to the Tigris was
restored to Turkey. In return for extensive and
exclusive economic concessions and preferential
commercial treatment, France agreed to make
the same promise that Italy had made, i. e., to
support the Angora Government in ousting
Greece from Smyrna and Thrace. The news of
the treaty, leaking out almost immediately, caused
a great outcry against France in Great Britain.
Parliament and press united in denouncing the
French act as a blow to the Entente alliance, a
disloyal and underhand proceeding, and the be-
trayal of France's glorious and traditional role
as protector of the Christians in the Levant.

The success of the Kemalists in 192 1 had as
great an effect at Constantinople as at Athens.
At the beginning of the year Mustafa Kemal
Pasha had officially notified the Constantinople
Grand Vizir that the Angora Nationalist Govern-
ment was the only government in Turkey, and
that no measures passed or decrees issued in Con-
stantinople would thereafter be considered as
valid. This was a warning to all the world.
Gradually during the year Angora increased in
prestige among the Turks, and the Sultan's au-
thority diminished. Despite the unfavorable mili-
tary situation of the Kemalists in Western Asia
Minor, the great mass of the Turks in Constanti-

455

EUROPE SINCE 1918

nople believed that salvation would come to An-
gora. On November 1, 1921, the Angora Gov-
ernment declared itself constitutional, with the
cabinet fully responsible to parliament. A com-
mission was appointed to suggest modifications to
the Constitution of 1908. Mustafa Kernel Pasha
announced that when his Government returned to
Constantinople the power of the Sultan would be
strictly limited.

In 1922 Angora became the Mecca of conces-
sion-hunters, Bolshevist and anti-Bolshevist agi-
tators, and European agents for the sale of war
materials. Because of the refusal of France and
Italy to tolerate a Greek blockade, the Kemalists
were able to import all the supplies they could buy
for cash or on credit. In the spring they began
to use the same means they had employed against
the Armenians to exterminate the several hun-
dred thousand Greeks living in the Black Sea
regions, mostly in the old kingdom of Pontus,
whose medieval capital was Trebizond. News of
the massacres and deportations was carefully con-
cealed ; for the Turks knew that the principal mis-
giving Entente diplomacy had in the matter of
the restoration of Western Asia Minor to Turkish
rule was the fear of massacres of Christians,
which would perturb public opinion.

The Nationalists seemed to have become friends
with all the world except the British. Lloyd

456

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

George and Curzon were rightly suspected of se-
cretly encouraging the Greeks and of hostility to
the Kemalist movement. Nationalism always
being akin to fanaticism, it was not surprising
that anti-British feeling should become one of the
cardinal points of Kemalism. The British seemed
to stand between the Turks and their escape from
the consequences of the World War, while the
French and Italians were willing to let them off
scot-free. The British also were the opponents
of Nationalism throughout the Mohammedan
world, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Persia,
and India. The attitude of the Nationalists
toward Great Britain is illustrated by extracts
from an article published in the spring of 1922
in the "Peyam Sabah," an Angora newspaper,
over the signature of one of Kemal Pasha's lead-
ing satellites, Aka Goundouz:

One thing stands out definite, unshakable, eruptive like
a volcano, stable and firm like the faith in God, infinite
like time and darkness : hatred against the British.

The Mohammedan who really feels the need of purity
of spirit in support of his religious convictions needs
something else : hatred against the British.

It is the British who sow trouble and discord amongst
you, O servants of Christ. You should therefore know
that if the commandments of the Holy Spirit are ten in
number, the eleventh should be hatred against the British.

There is a certain force which blows up civilization,
kicks at virtue, and opposes humanity : it is England.

457

EUROPE SINCE 1918

There is a typhoon which soaks with blood the cradles
of the innocent, devastates the hearths, and causes foams
of blood to cover lips that wish to smile : it is England.

And you, army of the Creator and Just One! Every
time you massacre a Greek you are pulling down one of
the corner-stones of the British Empire. So, for God's
sake, massacre. For the love of your country, massacre.
O army of righteousness, on the day of your victory every-
body will spit on the shameless face of the British.

In May and June the British press made much
of reports of massacres, and the question of the
responsibility of the Entente Powers was brought
up in Parliament. Because the Kemalists had
answered by blanket denials and by counter-
charges against the Greeks, which were supported
by the French and also by American concession-
hunters, the British Government proposed a com-
mission of investigation in which the United
States was invited to participate. The commis-
sion was to visit the regions occupied by the
Greeks as well as those over which the Kemalists
held sway, and report to the Supreme Council.
Secretary Hughes accepted the proposal. So did
the Greek Government. But the Angora Govern-
ment refused, on the ground that the commission
would be made up of those who were technically
still the enemies of Turkey. At the closing ses-
sion of Parliament, on August 5, 1922, Lloyd
George made a stirring speech against the claims
of the Turkish Nationalists.

458

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

Then followed the attack against the Greek
front at the end of August, the panic in the Greek
army, and the sensational collapse of the Greeks.
The victory was as easy for the Turks, virtually
unopposed, as it was sudden and unexpected.
Within a few weeks the Nationalists had overrun
all the territories the Greeks had taken two years
to conquer, and were marching on Constantinople.
The Italians had already got out of Asia Minor.
Paris wired orders to the commander of the
French troops in Constantinople to withdraw to
the European side of the Bosphorus. The Brit-
ish Government, however, decided that the armi-
stice of Mudros must be respected until a new
treaty was made to replace the Treaty of Sevres.
Reinforcements, naval and military, were hurried
to the Dardanelles. General Harington was
given full powers to prevent the violation of the
armistice terms. Chanak, on the Asiatic side
of the Bosphorus, was hastily fortified. Lloyd
George appealed to the British dominions for sup-
port and warned Mustapha Kemal Pasha that an
overt act on the part of the Nationalists would
mean war.

The French Government, alarmed at the turn
events had taken, and urged by French holders of
Turkish bonds not to allow the Kemalists to pro-
voke the British, tried to persuade Lloyd George
and Curzon to meet the Turks half-way. London

459

EUROPE SINCE 1918

answered that His Majesty's Government was
willing to recognize the new conditions created by
the Turkish victories in Asia Minor and to agree
to let the Turks have back Eastern Thrace after
the new treaty was signed, but no concession could
be made in regard to the Straits. Poincare then
sent Franklin Bouillon to convince Kemal Pasha
of the folly of attacking the British; for by
this action he would certainly lose all he had
gained. After days of suspense during which
the British held firm, the Turks agreed to meet
the Entente Powers and the Greeks in an ar-
mistice conference at Mudania, on the Sea of
Marmora.

The Turks wanted to reoccupy Constantinople
and Thrace immediately. The British refused.
After long discussion a compromise was made.
The Greeks should evacuate Eastern Thrace ; and
Turkish gendarmes, with civilian functionaries,
should be allowed to take over the administration
of Thrace, pending the decision of the Peace Con-
ference. The Nationalists might also send func-
tionaries to Constantinople. But the Entente
Powers should remain in control of the Straits,
and the garrisons at Constantinople should not be
withdrawn until after peace was signed. This
was the situation when the delegates of the En-
tente Powers, the Little Entente, Greece, and
Turkey — all of whom had signed the defunct

460

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

Treaty of Sevres — met at Lausanne on Novem-
ber 20, 1922, to try again to establish peace in the
Near East.

The Turkish Nationalists had numerous friends
in Europe and America ever since the beginning
of the movement. It is not open to question that
the Treaty of Sevres was as bad a treaty as the
other four treaties of the Paris peace settlement.
It transferred Turks and other Moslems to the
rule of their former subjects. It contained eco-
nomic fetters and intolerable limitations of sover-
eignty. But there is no objection to the Treaty
of Sevres that would not hold with equal force in
regard to the other treaties. In fact, its injustices
were less, and the provocation for its punish-
ments and guarantees for the future were as
great as that which explained the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, if not greater. Morally or logically speak-
ing, protagonists for the Turks have no more
ground to stand upon than protagonists for the
Germans.

The movement for the revision of the Treaty
of Sevres, which was begun before the treaty was
signed, had its origin in the economic rivalry and
the mutual suspicions of the victors. Had not
this conflict of interests, which we attempt to ex-
plain in discussing the question of the Straits, be-
came acute enough for Italy and France to de-
cide to give encouragement and aid to the Turkish

461

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Nationalist movement, there need not have been
a Lausanne Conference.

The sentimentalists, who see in Mustapha
Kemal Pasha "the George Washingtqn of his
country," had not studied the Young Turk move-
ment of a decade ago and experienced its bitter
disillusionment. The influences that are contrib-
uting to the success of Mustapha Kemal Pasha
are as numerous and seemingly contradictory
as those that brought to the fore Lenin and Mus-
solini. Because of the ignorance of the Anatolian
Turks, their lack of knowledge and appreciation
of Occidental political institutions, and their in-
difference or actual hostility to the economic and
social impulses guiding and directing European
and American life, the attempt to find an analogy
between the Turks and ourselves in similar cir-
cumstances is futile.1

All we can safely do is to point out that the
Kemalists are inexperienced in the art of govern-
ing and are military masters of the situation only
in a defensive sense. They live in a country with-
out roads and railways, into which, as the Greeks

1 In the interior of Asia Minor in the spring of 1922 I found
many influential Turks who were bitterly opposed to the Na-
tionalist movement, and the opposition was still more marked
in Constantinople. The summary action of the Angora As-
sembly against the Sultan was used by intelligent anti-Kemalists
to excite the peasants, with the result that a Central Revolu-
tionary Committee was formed in January, 1923, to overthrow
Kemalism. With the coming of summer bands formed in many
parts of Asia Minor and the guerilla warfare became formidable.

462

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

learned, penetration is costly and dangerous.
The Nationalists seem to realize this advantage,
and talk of making Angora the capital of New
Turkey. Constantinople and Brusa, as recent
events have proved, are so situated that any Turk-
ish Government would be at the mercy of the
Greeks, not to mention the great powers. Despite
the threats at Mudania and Lausanne, the Kemal-
ists were not in a position to break off the negotia-
tions. Such a course would have again lost them
Eastern Thrace. Lacking sea-power, they would
not have been able to take the offensive against
the Greeks in Europe. Even if they had suc-
ceeded in doing so, they would have had the Little
Entente to reckon with. As potential foes, how-
ever, they worried the Entente Powers because of
the uncertainty of the attitude of Russia and the
apprehension of Mohammedan unrest in British,
French, and Italian colonies.

The strength of the Turkish Nationalist move-
ment has not been, as some people have imagined,
in the invincible patriotism of the Turkish people,
the leadership of the Mohammedan world, or the
threat of Mustafa Kemal Pasha to band together
the Turanian peoples of Western and Central
Asia against European overlordship. Volumes
have been written on each of these supposed
sources of strength. None of them is convincing.

There are hardly more than 6,000,000 Turks,

463

EUROPE SINCE 1918

scattered over a vast territory and living under
primitive conditions. That they know what pa-
triotism is in our Occidental connotation of that
term is impossible. The educated younger gen-
eration of Turks are patriots, and sincerely love
and believe in their country. But they are a
handful. Caught between the older generation
of the upper class, which is still Hamidian in spirit
and methods, and the apathetic and ignorant Ana-
tolian peasantry, there is something pathetic about
the enthusiasm and incredible credulity of earnest
and highminded young people of both sexes.

The Turkish Nationalist movement, like most
nationalist movements, is anti-clerical. The An-
gora Turks have gone as far as they dared, in
view of the advantages of religious fanaticism
in their internal policy and of Mohammedan sol-
idarity in their foreign policy, to put the worship
of race and country in the place of the worship of
God through the intermediary of the Mohamme-
dan faith and practice. The decree of the Na-
tional Assembly on November 1, 1922, terminat-
ing the temporal power of the House of Osman,
and assuming the right of the Angora Assembly
to elect a new Khalif for the Mohammedan world,
illustrates how the Nationalists regard their in-
ternal interests and the triumph of their party as
transcending religious considerations and the sen-
timents of the Mohammedan world. The as-

464

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

sumption that "the Turkish Government will be
the principal rampart of the Khalifate" (to quote
the decree) is a revelation of the state of mind of
the Nationalist leaders, obsessed by the idea that
a few million Turks, having destroyed the historic
Sultanate, could expect to dominate Islam and to
capitalize it for their particular interests. The
Sultan fled from Constantinople to Malta on a
British warship, and later proceeded to Mecca,
where he was received as Khalif by the Arabs.
He has not abdicated and refuses to recognize the
validity of the Angora Assembly's decree abolish-
ing the temporal power of the House of Osman
and removing him from his position as spiritual
head of those who profess the orthodox Moham-
medan faith.

There have been surface indications, however,
of a seeming Mohammedan solidarity, which have
deceived the casual newspaper reader and have
undoubtedly powerfully helped the Turkish Na-
tionalist cause. A sacred flag of Islam was sent
by the Turks to the Mohammedans of India in
February, 1923, when the first Lausanne Confer-
ence broke up. It was used as a symbol in pro-
cessions in Bombay and other cities, which ended
in mass meetings of Mohammedans in which sym-
pathy and support for Turkey were voted. Along
with these demonstrations there has been a re-
cruiting movement in Northern India, which has

465

EUROPE SINCE 1918

been supplying the Turks with Indian and Afghan
volunteers. Assurances have been given that
Angora can rely on 200,000 trained volunteers
and an insurrectionary movement in India as well,
should war come as a result of the failure of the
Lausanne Conference.

These indications must be interpreted as moves
in the Nationalist trouble against the British in
India, and not as a recognition of the importance
of the Turks in the Mohammedan world. The
whole Turkish race in Asia Minor numbers less
than one-tenth of the Moslems of India ! While
the Indian Moslems are backing the Turks they
are also interested in gauging the strength of
Arabic opposition to Great Britain, and have ac-
cepted the Arabic determination to remain from
now on free from Turkish domination. Angora
was ignored at the April Lucknow Conference,
on the question of the administration of Moham-
medan Holy Lands and regulations for the Mecca
pilgrimage. There was no reference to Constan-
tinople or Angora, and it was decided to send a
deputation to the rulers of Hedjaz and Irak, for
the purpose of anti-British agitation.

If it is difficult to see how the Turkish Nation-
alist movement is going to control the Mohamme-
dan world, it is still more difficult to accept the
idea that there is such a movement as pan-Tura-
nianism, of which the Nationalists make so much.

466

THE TURKISH NATIONALISTS

In the days of its glory, the Ottoman Empire in-
cluded the Caucasus and the entire coast of the
Black Sea. The Ottoman Turks were masters
of a part of the Turanian race and neighbors of
the Turanians of Central Asia. During the lat-
ter part of the World War, and for a brief mo-
ment in the early part of 192 1, the Ottoman Turks
partly restored the old contacts. But these were
broken again by the Bolshevists, who have proved
themselves in Asia tenacious inheritors of tradi-
tional Russian foreign policy. Half a century
ago the Ottoman Turks lost to Russia the last of
the Turanian regions in the Caucasus. In 192.1
they were compelled again to relinquish the dream
of leading the Turanians. The Ottoman Turks
are incapable of coping with the Russians, what-
ever form of government Russia may have. A
pan-Turanian movement, deriving its inspiration
from Turkey and giving power to Turkey, does
not need to be reckoned with as a probability in
world politics.

The strength of the Turkish Nationalists is in
the geographical position of their country, from
the outlet of the Black Sea to the sources of the
Mesopotamian rivers, where Russia and Great
Britain fear they will some day meet in a struggle
for the control of India, and from which France,
Italy, and Germany are determined not to be ex-

467

EUROPE SINCE 1918

eluded. If we realize this, we shall see that gov-
ernmental backing of oil, mining, railway, and
port concessions have a politicat as well as a
commercial motive. Fear is the incentive to
greed. The success that has attended the Turk-
ish Nationalist movement is due to the recogni-
tion of this fact by Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his
associates; their own political future — and the
importance of the New Turkey — will depend upon
their ability to make good use of it.

468

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ENTENTE POWERS AND THE
QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

SHORTLY before the debacle of the Greek
army in Asia Minor I was discussing the
question of war weariness with English
friends at luncheon in a London club. Aware
that good fortune had thrown me with men who
knew — if any did — the state of the public mind
in Great Britain, I was trying to find out whether
the British would be ready to back by force of
arms the French reparations demands upon Ger-
many. My informants were unanimous in the
belief that no Government could lead the English
people into a new war. "Not a chance in the
world, any more than there is in your country,"
declared a Foreign Office man. "We know that
so well that we got out of Ireland, compromised
with Egypt, put up with a makeshift in Mesopo-
tamia, stalled on the Zionist business in Palestine,
and are constantly warning the Government of
India to avoid trouble internally and with Afghan-
istan."

"You mean that the people are not behind you
in support of traditional policies abroad, unless

469

EUROPE SINCE 1918

you can work them into feeling that pride and
honor are involved."

"As for pride, we 'd swallow a lot before we
would allow the income tax to go higher, and that
honor business depends upon the press. Well,
our press is as pacifist now as it was jingo a few
years ago. We are not in a fire-eating mood. I
do not think of any problem in international
politics that could involve our -people in war."

"How about the Straits?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, the Straits ; that 's different," ad-
mitted my friend. "We should have to fight for
the freedom of the Straits. No alternative there
if the Greeks should lose out and the Turks push
us."

"Having been incited to push you," I com-
mented.

"Having been incited to push us," he repeated
gravely. And the others bowed assent.

Thi§ took me back to the previous week in
Paris, when I had twice secured modifications of
sweeping statements from men in the highest posi-
tion by the same simple question. When one
statesman told me that France would never ex-
tend the hand of fellowship to the Bolsheviki,
I asked, "How about the Straits?" And when
another statesman declared that France and Great
Britain must and would see eye to eye in perfect
solidarity "for the sake of the future of civiliza-

470

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

tion," I asked, "How about the Straits ?" In both
instances there was the admission that making up
with Lenin and destroying the Entente were les-
ser evils to France than seeing the English, either
openly or indirectly through Greece as a tool, in-
stalled at Constantinople, and, ergo, in control of
the Straits.

Without going into history further than the
Conference of San Remo in the spring of 1920,
we see that the determination of France to oust
Great Britain from Constantinople and of Italy
to prevent Greece from profiting by her interven-
tion in the World War has made strange political
bedfellows, has split the Entente alliance, has
given Russia her chance to get back into the coun-
cils of the great powers, has made possible the
repetition of massacres of Christians by the
Turks, has jeopardized the advantages granted in
the Treaty of Sevres to the Entente Powers as
well as to Greece, and has created the dangerous
precedent and example in allowing one of the en-
emy states, to whom a victors' treaty had been
dictated, to tear up the treaty and turn the tables
by dictating a new treaty to the erstwhile victors.

It is not too much to say that the quarrel among
the Entente Powers over the disposition of the
Straits has ended in robbing them of virtually all
the spoils of their victory over the Central Em-
pires, in damaging their prestige, and in under-

47i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

mining still further their authority in the Mo-
hammedan world, already seriously impaired dur-
ing the World War and the Peace Conference.
The Conference of San Remo came to an agree-
ment that saved the Entente from dissolution.
But the failure of the three contracting parties —
Great Britain, France, and Italy — to live up to the
agreement and to enforce the Treaty of Sevres
revealed a house divided against itself and demon-
strated the fact that treaties imposed upon the
vanquished by force would be upset the moment
the force was dissipated. When the Entente
generals met the representatives of Kemal Pasha
at Mudania, they were confronted with demands
the acceptance of which meant the first step in the
inevitable surrender of all that had been gained
by the World War. It was an hour of supreme
danger when Ismet Pasha demanded the sur-
render of Constantinople before the terms of a
new peace settlement in the Near East had been
arranged. And yet France dared to support this
demand, which Great Britain and Italy opposed,
risking everything on playing the card that would
get the British out of Constantinople.

Why did the triumph of their respective points
of view in regard to the Straits seem of such vital
importance to the British and French statesmen
that they were willing to sacrifice friendship, alli-
ance, and the war aims in the defense and f urther-

472

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

ance of which they fought to a glorious and suc-
cessful end the most stupendous and costly war of
history? Both nations professed to be defend-
ing "the freedom of the Straits" and to be work-
ing to avert "a more horrible war than we have
yet known," as Lloyd George put it. But they
acted toward one another more like enemies than
friends, and their premiers, with the support of
Cabinets and the press, advanced diametrically
opposite opinions as to the best way to prevent the
war they dreaded.

If the sorry mess in the Near East is settled
without war, we shall be told that a dreadful
calamity has only been postponed; and for this
doubtful victory France will have paid the price
of loss of British support in wringing money out
of Germany. If it leads to war, Great Britain
fears the entry of Soviet Russia against her and
uprisings in her Mohammedan possessions.

The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, so nar-
row that you can shoot an ordinary rifle from one
continent to the other, so winding that cannon
can rake a ship fore and aft as well as shell broad-
side at many places, afford the only outlet to the
outside world for Bulgaria, Rumania, southern
Russia, the Caucasus republics, and some of the
largest and richest vilayets of Turkey. For all
Russia these waterways are the sole ice-free pas-
sage. They are the nearest and most practicable

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EUROPE SINCE 1918

outlet for northern Persia and the khanates of
central Asia. A considerable portion of the wheat
supply of many European countries comes in
normal times from southern Russia, while Europe
learned to count upon the regular appearance on
the market of the vast petroleum output of the
Baku region of the Caucasus. The major por-
tion of the trade of a region inhabited by one and
a half times the population of the United States is
carried through Black Sea ports. So important
to the world's well-being was the free passage be-
tween the Black Sea and the Mediterranean con-
sidered before the World War that Italy and the
Balkan States, in their wars with Turkey, had to
yield to the remonstrances of other nations and
forego the advantage of bringing pressure to
bear upon Turkey by attacking and blockading the
Straits.

Although during the nineteenth century the
danger to the British Empire of the control of the
Straits by an enemy power in time of war was
never given a practical demonstration, it was
vividly enough imagined for the British to have
fought once (the Crimean War) and to have been
ready to fight on two other occasions (Treaty of
Unkiar-Skelessi, 1833, and Treaty of San Stef-
ano, 1878) to prevent Russia from dominating
the Straits.

A practical demonstration of this danger was

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QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

given during the recent World War. The disas-
trous effects to the Entente Powers of Turkey's
alliance with their enemies, which closed the
Straits for four precious years, have not yet been
fully measured. By handing over to Germany the
control of the Straits the Turks are directly re-
sponsible for (i) the length of the war, (2) the
collapse of Russia, (3) the year of grace during
which the Bolshevist regime got itself thoroughly
established in Russia, (4) the menace to the Suez
Canal during the war, and (5) the unchecked
spread of anti-British propaganda in northwest
India, Afghanistan, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt.
The Dardanelles expedition, which was a holo-
caust for Australians and New Zealanders as well
as British, was entered upon and persisted in be-
cause the British Government realized that the
Straits ought to be forced, if possible, regardless
of cost, for the sake of vital imperial interests.
Using Turkey and the Holy War, Germany was
in a fair way to cut England's communications
with India, the Far East, and Australasia. In
1916 the British were saved by their success in
fomenting a rebellion of Mecca against Constanti-
nople, which was possible because of the tactless-
ness of the Turks toward the Arabs and the cruel
repressions of Djemal Pasha in Damascus and
Beirut. In 19 17 they were saved by the entry of
the United States into the war. American cred-

475

EUROPE SINCE 1918

its and supplies, the moral effect of America's
entry, and the American contribution to the En-
tente armies on the western front in the spring
and early summer of 1918 alone made possible the
retention of the British armies in Mesopotamia,
Egypt, and Macedonia. But to the wise man a
menace successfully confronted is not a menace
forgotten. The Islamic belt stretches around the
Black Sea, across the Dardanelles and Bosphorus,
and across the Suez Canal. The British Empire
is defended by the British fleet. If the fleet is
powerless to exercise pressure upon the enemies
of the Empire in the interests and defense of the
Empire, the Empire will crumble to pieces in
short order.

Breathing a sigh of relief when the armistice
was signed, the British Foreign Office, aware of
the vital importance of the Black Sea region to
the future of British rule in Asia, sent troops not
only to Constantinople but also to the Caucasus
and northern Persia. Pressure was once more
brought to bear upon Afghanistan; and, despite
interpellations in Parliament on the ground of ex-
pense, the Mesopotamian army was reinforced
and extended its occupation northward and east-
ward. The powerful sympathies of international
Jewry were enlisted to create a buffer region on
the Asiatic side of the Suez Canal.

Gradually, however, it was realized that tax

476

THE STRAITS

weariness and war weariness at home must be
reckoned with. This meant abandonment of the
Caucasus, Persia, and Afghanistan to the undis-
puted influence of Soviet Russia, whose propa-
ganda it was planned to call off by trade agree-
ments and the lifting of the economic blockade.
The Mohammedan world, not being interested
in trade and not being vitally vulnerable to any
form of economic or food blockade, could best be
watched and intimidated by a British fleet at Con-
stantinople, holding Stambul and the Sultan's
palace of Dolmabagche under its guns, and able
to cruise at will in the Black Sea. As the tax-
payers accept the burden of maintaining the fleet
without complaint, the freedom enjoyed in the
Straits since 1918 has been a boon to the British
Government in exercising pressure without spend-
ing too much money!

The Treaty of Sevres is a splendid illustration
of the vicious methods of world politics, which
make agreements between nations unsound and
insincere: unsound because they are not arrived
at after a fair consideration of the issues at stake
and because they represent makeshift compro-
mises; insincere because the contracting parties
do not intend to keep them if contingent agree-
ments— or rather bargains — are not lived up to.
The British point of view prevailed in the Treaty
of Sevres. But Italy expected to gain from this

477

EUROPE SINCE 1918

concession British support against the Jugoslavs
in the Adriatic, and France expected British sup-
port for extreme measures against Germany in
the reparations collection. Both nations looked
to Great Britain either to forgive or forget their
indebtedness to her or at least to grant them the
priority already acknowledged to Belgium in rep-
arations payments.

Before the ink was dry on the Treaty of Sevres,
France and Italy realized, that the British could
not be depended upon to help them out of their
troubles, political or financial; and the return of
Constantine gave an excellent excuse to two of the
three makers of the treaty not only to consider it
null and void but actually to work against it.
We must not lay too much stress upon the con-
cessions featured in the secret treaties negotiated
by Italy and France with the Angora Government.
Considerations of foreign policy were paramount.
Italy plotted the ruin of a potential commercial
competitor in the eastern Mediterranean and the
Black Sea. France was bent on destroying the
country she believed Great Britain had picked to
hold Constantinople and the Straits as agent for
British political and commercial interests. The
Nationalist Turks had the luck to be a good wea-
pon to be used by two members of the Entente alli-
ance to strike the third; and the Greeks had the
misfortune to be lacking in endurance to play

478

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

through to the end of the game the British ex-
pected them to play alone, for the British Gov-
ernment was not prepared to risk Mohammedan
difficulties by coming out openly on the side of the
Greeks.

Great Britain did not feel uneasy about the
Turks on the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus un-
til after the Young Turk revolution. The new
regime had not been long installed before foreign
observers began to see that the Young Turks were
smitten with megalomania. They had an inor-
dinate confidence in their own strength and in
their ability to impose their cultural and political
hegemony, in a constitutionl state, upon the non-
Turkish elements, Moslem as well as Christian.
Abdul Hamid and his predecessors had been past
masters in the art of knowing how far to go in
pitting one European Power against another, in
collecting taxes from Christians and oppressing
them, and in extending administrative control
over non-Turkish Moslems and conscripting for
the army among them. The Young Turks pro-
voked Albanians and Arabs to rebellion, alienated
Circassians and Kurds, and goaded the Balkan
States to the point of desperation where they
were able to forget their own rivalries long enough
to combine and drive the Turks out of Macedonia
and Thrace. How could a British Liberal Gov-
ernment, relying upon the Nonconformist vote,

479

EUROPE SINCE 1918

continue to aid the Turks in maintaining their
domination over subject peoples who had proved
their ability to free themselves? After the first
year of enthusiasm and generous impulse ended
in the horrible Adana massacre, the Young Turks
were thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the
electors to whom Messrs. Asquith and Lloyd
George had to appeal in two bitterly contested
General Elections.

Turkey was weakened both by fruitless efforts
to put down the rebellions among Mohammedan
subject peoples that her new masters foolishly
provoked and by the Young Turk policies in Trip-
oli and Macedonia, which were heading directly
toward wars that could end only disastrously.
Her leaders looked to Europe for some powerful
ally. Abandoning Abdul Hamid's safe policy of
pitting one against another, the Young Turks de-
liberately chose Germany as their friend, put their
army and the control of the Straits in Germany's
hands a year before the World War broke out,
and during the months of August and September,
1914, so critical to the Entente Powers, deceived
the British and French by protestations of friend-
ship and neutrality. But as soon as the engineer
officers of their German allies advised them that
the Dardanelles could not be forced by a fleet, they
threw in their lot with the Central Powers. Dur-
ing the years since the armistice the Turks have

480

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

been in close touch with Soviet Russia and have
assisted materially in the anti-British propaganda
of the Bolshevists in Asia.

The difference between the Young Turks and
the Old Turks is that the regime since 1908 pur-
ports to represent a people conscious of its na-
tionhood and power, while the Hamidian regime
was a system that had existed for centuries upon
the three-fold foundation: a theocratic absolutist
Government, centralized at Constantinople, for
the Turkish element and other Mohammedan ele-
ments near the sea or in lowlands ; virtual auton-
omy, on the principle of non-intervention or
laisser-faire, for non-Turkish Mohammedan peo-
ples of the mountains or hinterland ; and separate
communities under their hierarchies for the Chris-
tian peoples of the empire. Old Turkey could
be the enemy of no country except one that invaded
her, and during the nineteenth century interven-
tion of other powers was always invoked against
an aggressor power. Abdul Hamid's pan-Islamic
movement was a political one, with a limited ap-
peal. The autocrat did not allow it to get out of
hand through the awakening of a national con-
sciousness. Until 1908 it never occurred to the
British that Turkey was a country that might at
any time, without provocation upon the part of
Great Britain, join the enemies of the British
Empire in time of war, close the Straits, and pro-

481

EUROPE SINCE 1918

claim a Holy War against the greatest Moham-
medan power in the world (for the British Em-
pire is that). But since 1908 Great Britain has
had to reckon with Turkey as a potential enemy,
and, since 1914, as an actual enemy. As a mili-
tary menace the Turks are negligible to the Brit-
ish. But the Turks handing the key to the
Straits to an enemy of Great Britain in time of
war — that has happened once, and the British
know that if it is allowed to happen again the
death-knell of the British Empire may sound.

The freedom of the Straits, from the British
point of view, means the insertion of guarantees
in the peace settlement in the Near East of such
a nature that a repetition of 19 14 will be impos-
sible. The Straits must be open to British war-
ships in time of war as in time of peace, open in
such a way that nothing can close them. It is
unnecessary to make any provisions concerning
merchant ships. The British undertake to have
a fleet large enough to look out for their merchant
marine in war and peace !

What are these guarantees ? First of all, pro-
hibition of any form of fortification along the
Straits or in the Sea of Marmora. Second, a
neutral zone, whose inviolability will be under the
vigilant control of an international commission on
both sides of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus.

Third, the absence of armies and armaments in

482

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

the neutral zone. When Mr. Lloyd George de-
clared that never again should the Straits be closed
against the British, his political opponents (except
the Labor men) agreed that the French needed to
be told bluntly that the Straits guarantees meant
as much to the British as the Rhine guarantees
meant to the French, and that it was a case of
quid pro quo. Great Britain's future policy
toward German guarantees was going to be con-
tingent upon France's policy toward Turkish
guarantees.

The British warning to France was heeded by
Premier Poincare. When Lord Curzon called at
the Quai d'Orsay on October 6, he was informed
that instructions had been sent to Constantinople
for the French to agree with General Harington
in rejecting the Kemalist demand that Eastern
Thrace be turned over to Turkey immediately.
But the attitude of M. Franklin Bouillon, negoti-
ator of the Angora Treaty, at the Mudania con-
ference the previous day showed that what France
really wanted was the return of Constantinople
and Eastern Thrace to the Nationalist Turks
without serious or effective guarantees.

The French have a clarity of vision that Teu-
tons and Anglo-Saxons do not possess. If they
seem more selfish and cynical and hard-hearted
than ourselves it is only because they do not pos-
sess our comfortable faculty of deceiving our-

483

EUROPE SINCE 1918

selves into believing that motives are mostly actu-
ated by altruism rather than self-interest. The
intellectual honesty of the French people shocks
us when they apply it to their own actions, for we
have never learned how to be honest with our-
selves. To the Anglo-Saxon mind naked motives
are like nude women; we know there are such
things but our modesty clothes them !

The French look at the freedom of the Straits
as something akin to the freedom of the seas. It
is a comfortable formula without any meaning.
For is not freedom that which one enjoys through
the exercise of superior strength? And is it
possible to enjoy freedom without denying it to
others? The seas are free to the British, and the
affirmation of this freedom for themselves is the
negation of it to others. The British (I am still
presenting the French point of view) would think
that they had lost the freedom of the seas unless
they were able to go where they pleased and do
what their interests dictated in time of war. Now
for the Straits. Although Italy is wholly and
France partly and Great Britain not at all a Medi-
terranean power, the one of the three possessing
no littoral in the Mediterranean controls both
entrances to it. The French and Italians have
never heard the British advocating the dismantling
of Gibraltar and the application to the Suez Canal
of the Sevres Treaty provisions for the Darda-

484

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

nelles and Bosphorus. From the point of view
of her allies, what does Great Britain mean by the
freedom of the Straits? They believe that she
conspired with the Greeks to close the Straits,
which necessitated drastic counter-moves. And
now that these counter-moves have succeeded, why
all this great fuss over neutral zones? At the
bottom of it (au fond, as the French love to say in
summarizing the discussion of a problem or an
argument), what the British want is immunity
for their fleet from the inconveniences created by
nature to free movement in and out of the Black
Sea. Once this immunity is granted them, they
will be in a position, owing to their naval superi-
ority, to make it valueless to any other nation.
By the treaty negotiated at Washington, France
and Italy were asked to agree to a naval ratio of
1.75 to 1.75 in proportion to Britain's 5. To-
gether they are asked to accept 3.5 to Britain's
5. As long as this naval proportion holds by
treaty, the freedom of the Straits is valuable only
for Great Britain and the United States.

Let us take a concrete illustration. Let us say
that the treaty settlement does have guarantees
that are effective, that the neutral zone is estab-
lished and controlled, and that the Bosphorus and
Dardanelles are without fortifications. The Brit-
ish fleet is able to pass at will from the Mediter-
ranean to the Black Sea and vice versa. Its

485

EUROPE SINCE 1918

cruising-radius, and hence its power, is extended
to the vast Black Sea regions. But does that
freedom work out in the same way for Russia
and France and Italy? The Straits are free, yes,
but the mistress of the seas, for that very reason,
would be able to attack the Russians in their own
waters, and then, backed up against the "free"
Straits, oppose at either end to any comer (except
the United States, who is not interested in that
part of the world) a floating barrier of fortifi-
cations more powerful than any that ever could
be erected at the mouth of the Bosphorus on the
Black Sea or the mouth of the Dardanelles on the
yEgean Sea. Again, in case of war, if the Straits
are free, only the British merchant marine could
pass freely in and out of the Black Sea.

One objects that we must consider the good
faith of England; and the Anglophile declares
that England never abuses her power and that
her word is as good as her bond. Yes, that is
a powerful argument for us Americans, now that
we have our 5 to 5 ratio. It was a powerful argu-
ment before, because we were neither trade nor
political rivals of our cousins across the sea. But
we must get it into our heads that the French
and Italians and Russians do not look upon the
British as most of us do. The British are a po-
tential enemy. History has demonstrated that

nations change alliances bewilderingly. The for-

486

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

eign policy of France (and of Italy) in the Near
East always takes into consideration the superi-
ority of the British fleet and the possession by
Great Britain of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, and
Malta. Whatever steps can be taken to lessen
the menace of British sea-power, or, at least, to
prevent its becoming a greater menace, are justi-
fiable and worth risking much. As they do not
believe Bolshevism will last for ever, French and
Italians look upon Russian influence dominating
Constantinople as less of a danger in war and far,
far less of a stumbling-block to commerce in peace
than British control there.

Since Italy has got over her fear of an internal
Bolshevist movement, and since France has be-
come convinced that Poland will never replace her
old Muscovite ally as the "guardian of civiliza-
tion against German barbarism" on the eastern
marches, there has been a marked tendency in
Rome and Paris to talk about the obligations of
the Entente secret treaty of 191 5. The French,
especially, are apprehensive of the moment when
a regenerated but thoroughly nationalistic Russia,
upon whom France will be able to depend far
more than upon Great Britain and the United
States for aid against a German recovery, will
ask how her friends looked after her interests
abroad during the years of misfortune and hu-
miliation. They want to be able to say that they

487

EUROPE SINCE 1918

had prevented Great Britain from corralling Con-
stantinople. In Greek hands it might not have
been possible to consider Constantinople as a
tempting morsel to bait the imperialistic ambitions
of convalescent Russia. With an international
neutral zone established and the freedom of the
Straits guaranteed, the new Russia (although
realizing even more bitterly than the two Mediter-
ranean powers the exclusive advantage of this
regime to Great Britain) would have her hands
tied and would owe nothing but resentment to
France. With the Turks back on both sides of
the Straits, France can make a secret treaty with
Russia by which Turkey will follow Greece as a
sacrifice to the exigencies, to the superior inter-
ests, of European powers. Why not? France
has much less reason to regard Turkey than
Greece with a feeling of affection or obligation.
Greece was trussed and delivered up as a victim
to Kemal Pasha. If ever betrayal of the Turks
is the price of winning back Russia in an offen-
sive and defensive alliance against Germany, who
would be foolish enough to protest on the score
of honor?

I hold no brief for British or French, for Ital-
ian or Russian, for Turk or Greek. I have tried
not to wander into by-paths but to present here
the facts concerning the Straits. It is true that
these facts present a sorry picture of international

488

QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

morality. But is it not important for us to an-
alyze the motives actuating the principals in this
stupendous diplomatic battle? For only in this
way shall we come to understand how futile would
be the solution proposed so glibly, i. e., that the
League of Nations control the Dardanelles and
the Bosphorus. For, from the world point of
view, there is no separate problem called the Ques-
tion of the Straits, unless we decapitalize Straits,
and cut out the definite article. There is a ques-
tion of straits, by which we mean all international
waterways. The League of Nations can rightly
be suspected of being an agent of particular in-
terests, plotting in the interests of some nations
against other, until its champions are able to con-
vince themselves and public opinion in the nations
whose representatives sit on the League Council
that the League can exist and function only as
an instrument of impartial administration and
justice.

If the United States is willing to give up the
Panama Canal to the League, and Great Britain
is willing to give up Gibraltar and the Suez Canal
to the League, we have the right to criticize
French and Italian policy on the Bosphorus, on
the ground that these powers have less faith in
the League than ourselves! But by what right
do we expect these two powers to entrust their
interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and the

489

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Black Sea to the League of Nations when we
neither have given the example nor will promise
to follow it? And what can we possibly find to
say to Russia or Turkey, the countries most in-
terested?

CHAPTER XXIV

THE EASTERN QUESTION BEFORE
THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE

HE conference agreed upon at the time of

the signing of the Mudania armistice opened

at Lausanne on November 20, 1922. The
Turks had been defeated in the World War.
Their capital was still occupied by Entente soldiers
and sailors. Within a decade the Ottoman Em-
pire had suffered the most crushing humiliations
on the field of battle in all its long history, fol-
lowed by the loss of more than half its territory.
Italy had taken Tripoli; the Balkan States had
divided up the European provinces ; Italy and
Greece were in possession of the v^Egean islands,
including Rhodes and Crete; France held Syria;
and Great Britain was organizing a new political
status for Palestine, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt,
and Cyprus. The Sublime Porte had gone out of
business, and the House of Osman had ceased
to rule over what was left of Turkey. And yet
the Turks came to Lausanne, inspired by their easy
victory over the Greeks, to negotiate a treaty to
take the place of the Treaty of Sevres, which had
been dictated to them as a conquered nation two

EUROPE SINCE 1918

years earlier by the victors of the World War.

Why the Treaty of Sevres was going to be re-
vised and how the Turks were able to demand a
new treaty on the footing of equality we have
already shown. We have pointed out, too, cer-
tain reasons, in connection with the problems of
the Near East, that explain the failure of the
Entente to enforce the peace settlement with Tur-
key in the same way that it was trying to en-
force the other treaties of the Paris settlement.

The attitude of the Turkish Nationalist dur-
ing the Mudania armistice negotiations and the
six weeks that intervened until the peace confer-
ence opened was significant. It should have been
a warning to Entente statesmen that they would
never be able to make peace in the Near East,
much less arrive at some practicable solution of
the problems, unless they succeeded in getting
together, and unless they were determined to lay
down a common program of peace, rather than
abandon which they would coerce Turkey. The
Turks came to Lausanne assuming that the expul-
sion of the Greeks from Asia Minor and the re-
occupation of Eastern Thrace put them in the
position of victors, whose appeal to force to es-
cape the consequences of their cooperation with
Germany had been successful. They brought
with them a mandate from the Angora Assembly

to make a new treaty in conformity with the six

492

THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE

articles of the National Pact of 1920. In the
discussions with the Entente delegates and the
American "unofficial observers" they referred
constantly to this Pact and declared that they had
no authority to accept any clauses in a new treaty
contrary to the stipulations of the Pact.

No arguments or pleas could move them. Ev-
ery modification of the original proposals of the
Entente Powers was accepted as a matter of
course. The Turkish delegates were pleased to
observe, whenever the Entente delegates yielded
a point, that the principles of the National Pact
were being at last recognized.

The first test of the conference came on De-
cember 1, when Ismet Pasha, questioned about
the reports from Asia Minor of an exodus of
Christian minorities, admitted that these unfor-
tunates had been given one month to quit the
country. If they were dying on the roads from
hunger or cold, it was because they were "un-
necessarily panicky"; and if horrible conditions
existed in Black Sea ports, it was because the
Greek Government had not sent ships enough
to transport the refugees. Venizelos, who was
representing Greece, replied that it was a physi-
cal impossibility for Greece either to trans-
port hundreds of thousands or take care of
them on Greek soil. Greece had already some
six hundred thousand refugees on her hands.

493

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Then Ismet Pasha proposed an exchange of
Christians and Mohammedans between Turkey
and the Balkan States. Had not Venizelos him-
self offered this solution to the Bulgarians at
Bucharest when the Macedonian boundary-line
was being fixed?

Lord Curzon spoke strongly in behalf of the
Christians. He pointed out that the Turks had
already done away with more than one million,
that the Greeks of the interior of Asia Minor
and the Black Sea coast could not suddenly find
means of livelihood in a new country, that cross-
ing the mountains in winter meant freezing to
death, and that public opinion in Great Britain
would react unfavorably to the deportation.
The French and Italian delegates made no com-
ment. Ismet Pasha calmly replied that the se-
curity of Turkey demanded the expulsion of rev-
olutionary elements, that the country might have
a homogeneous population. The new policy was
a sane one, and the Turks would not yield their
right to make their country secure. Had not
Greece invoked the presence of a Christian popu-
lation as her excuse for invading Turkey and
attempting to detach the richest territories of the
Turkish fatherland? A durable peace could not
come until that temptation was removed ! Ismet
Pasha was naturally sorry for the sufferings of
the Christians, but they had brought this measure

494

THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE

upon their own heads by conspiring against
Turkey. He was, however, willing to telegraph
Angora recommending that a fortnight longer be
given the remaining Christians to get out.

The protection of Christian minorities, which
the European Powers had made a diplomatic is-
sue with Turkey for a hundred years, was the
first point yielded. Immediately the Turks an-
nounced that the Greek Patriarchate would have
to be removed from Constantinople, and that
probably measures would be adopted to expel the
400,000 Greeks and Armenians of the capital.
Would not this be the best way to settle the
minorities question?

When the various commissions of the confer-
ence got down to business and began to draft the
clauses of the treaty, Entente experts discovered
that the Turks refused point-blank to accept any-
thing which, in their opinion, would imply a lim-
itation upon Turkish sovereignty. Ismet Pasha
and the other delegates proceeded on three as-
sumptions : ( 1 ) Turkey has a right to equality ;

(2) Turkey is capable of ruling without limita-
tions of any sort and of handling her own affairs;

(3) Turkey has the force to resist any treaty
stipulation, territorial or economic, that violates
the terms of the National Pact. The National
Assembly had instructed its delegates to proceed
with the negotiations on the ground of non-rec-

495

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ognition of past treaties and agreements and on
the assumption that the status of regions of the
Ottoman Empire occupied during the World War
and held by British and French armies was still
open to discussion. The gist of the Turkish con-
tention was that the Angora Government inher-
ited all the privileges and none of the obligations
of the Ottoman Empire.

The striking of this snag, which affected vi-
tally the political balance of power in the Near
East and the economic interests of the Entente
Powers, caused the conference to waste weeks in
futile discussion. A recess was taken for Christ-
mas, in the hope that the Turks might be willing
to compromise. The Entente experts went ahead
with the work of drafting the treaty. But on
January 3, 1923, Reouf Bey, Chief of Commis-
sars of the Angora Government, told the Na-
tional Assembly that the full powers of the Turk-
ish delegation at Lausanne had been given to con-
clude peace, but with the following reservations:

(1) Karagach is inseparable from Adrianople.

(2) A plebiscite is demanded for Western Thrace.

(3) Turkey cannot recognize any Armenian State outside
the Armenian Republic in the Caucasus, whose capital
is Erivan.

(4) Before conceding freedom of the Straits, Turkey
must obtain full guarantees in regard to the security of
the Sea of Marmora and Constantinople.

496

THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE

(5) Turkey refuses to accept any foreign control on
Turkish territory.

(6) Mosul is within the limits of Turkey as outlined in
the National Pact, because the overwhelming majority of
its inhabitants are the sons of Turkey.

(7) If Turkey cannot obtain a war indemnity or repara-
tions at Lausanne, she must be allowed to settle this matter
with the Greeks alone.

(8) In the question of the capitulations, Turkey will re-
main true to the National Pact, by which they are abro-
gated.

(9) Yemen is a part of our country, and the Hedjaz
Railway is the property of the Evkaf ( Religious Founda-
tions).

The British and French could not for a time
believe that the Turks were in earnest. It was
preposterous to suppose that the British would
give up the Mosul region, rich in oil, which had
been the underlying motive of the stupendous
sacrifices they made to conquer and hold Meso-
potamia. The Yemen is a province of Arabia,
and the claim to it and to a proprietary right in
the Hedjaz Railway was a challenge to the Brit-
ish and French mandates. A plebiscite for
Western Thrace and Turkish claims for indem-
nity against Greece might easily lead to a new
Balkan war, with unlimited possibilities; for the
Little Entente was already showing itself rest-
less over the failure of the Big Entente delegates
to maintain the attitude they had adopted at Mu-

497

EUROPE SINCE 1918

dania, where a strict limitation of the forces
Turkey was to be allowed in Thrace had been
insisted upon. The most alarming of all the
claims of the Turks was their assertion of the
right to abrogate the capitulations.

The Mosul oil question seemed to be the pri-
mary cause for the break. But that was a dif-
ference between Turkey and Great Britain alone,
and was not as serious as it appeared on the sur-
face. The British were in possession of Mosul.
Having possession, they enjoyed the diplomatic
advantage; there was little for Turkey to do but
accept the postponement of the decision on this
question or its reference to arbitration. The
capitulations, on the other hand, brought out a
fundamental disagreement, in which all the
parties to the conference, including the Amer-
icans, were involved.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha telegraphed to Lau-
sanne a statement calculated to appeal to public
opinion, in which he referred directly to Mosul,
but with the intention of linking Mosul with the
capitulations in the perfidious chain he accused
the Entente Powers of foregoing in the Treaty of
Lausanne to keep Turkey under European ex-
ploitation. He said in part :

It is evident that enslavement of a people in order to
appropriate the natural resources of their country is con-
trary, not only to the spirit of the century, but also to the

498

THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE

most elementary principles of humanity. We think the oil
riches of Mosul, which, moreover, are within the frontiers
denned by our National Pact, ought to be exploited freely
for the common benefit of that region's population and all
humanity without monopoly of any sort.

There is no doubt of the force of the Turkish
appeal against the capitulatory regime and the
limitations upon sovereignty established by for-
mer concessions. Liberal public opinion has long
felt that Turkey, like China and other non-Euro-
pean countries, was a victim of European im-
perialism. Had it not been for the bloody his-
tory of massacres, in which the Kemalists shared,
the stand of the Turkish delegation at Lausanne
would have met with sympathy and wide support
in the British and American press. The capitu-
lations, the Turks asserted, were unjust and a
source of weakness, making the rehabilitation of
Turkey impossible. How could the new consti-
tutional Government develop a strong and pro-
gressive national life so long as foreign business
houses and foreigners individually enjoyed extra-
territorial privileges and immunity from taxa-
tion? Why should the Europeans and Amer-
icans possess in Turkey privileges that they
would never dream of granting Turks in their
countries? At Lausanne Ismet Pasha main-
tained that territorial questions and problems
arising from the pre-war debts could be settled

499

EUROPE SINCE 1918

by compromise or arbitration. The minorities
question was solving itself. But New Turkey
could sign no treaty containing a reaffirmation,
under another form, of the humiliating capitula-
tory principle.

For a month after the Franco-Belgian invasion
of the Ruhr had come to complicate the interna-
tional political situation, the Lausanne Confer-
ence continued to debate the question of the fu-
ture relations of Turkey with business concerns,
educational institutions, and individuals of Euro-
pean and American origin in Turkey. On Feb-
ruary 7, 1923, Ismet Pasha and the principal
members of the Turkish delegation left for An-
gora. This was the Turkish answer to a warn-
ing against renewed haggling that had been put
in the form of an ultimatum to the Turks. Lord
Curzon testily said:

I hope that Ismet Pasha will not imagine that we are
willing to commence the whole prccedure over again, and
that by further haggling and chaffering he will succeed in
upsetting the work of the past three months, and starting
a new conference either here or at some other spot. In
such a conference I at least could take no part. We are
not buying or selling a carpet in an Oriental bazaar, but
are dealing with the destinies of nations and the lives of
men.

Ambassador Child had urged Ismet Pasha to
sign the treaty, and Lord Curzon waited, at great

500

THE EASTERN QUESTION

loss of personal dignity, in the hope that the
Turks would give in. The Turks did not give in.
Ismet Pasha did not take the trouble to say good-
by to Lord Curzon. On the day the delegates
left Lausanne the French Foreign Office received
an alarming report from its consul at Smyrna,
begging for war-ships and stating that the evac-
uation of French subjects was imperative.
France acceded to the request and joined Great
Britain in sending more troops and war-ships to
the Dardanelles and Constantinople.

Mustafa Kemal Pasha retaliated by giving the
powers twenty-four hours to withdraw their war-
ships from Smyrna Harbor and declaring that
in the future no armed vessel of more than a
thousand tons could enter Turkish ports. The
ultimatum was ignored. The Entente Powers
remained at Smyrna; and during the late winter
and spring they refused numerous requests to
get out of Constantinople, although they did
agree to turn over the administration of the city
to representatives of the Angora Government.
Without waiting for a treaty, the Turks at Con-
stantinople and elsewhere began to enforce the
observance of Turkish laws by foreign business
houses, educational institutions, missionary en-
terprises, and individuals. The United States
joined the Entente and neutral Powers in pro-
tests, which were unheeded.

5°*

EUROPE SINCE 1918

In the meantime negotiations concerning the
treaty had been carried on by notes exchanged
between Angora and the Entente chancelleries.
They led to no result. In the hope of arriving at
some agreement and putting an end to an intoler-
able situation, which might at any moment lead
to a new war in the Near East, the Entente
Powers decided to renew the Lausanne Confer-
ence, which met again at the end of April.

The conference resumed its sessions at Lau-
sanne on April 22 in an atmosphere that had not
changed during the recess. Quite the contrary!
During the fortnight preceding the reopening,
several events had complicated the diplomatic sit-
uation in the Near East. The Greeks had
seemingly been able to reconstitute an army of
100,000, mobilized on the Thracian frontier. On
April 15 the deposed sultan, who, through British
aid, had gone to the Hedjaz, issued a proclamation
from Mecca, declaring null and void the decree
of the Angora Assembly, deposing him from the
double office of sultan and khalif and naming a
new khalif. On April 10 the Turkish Govern-
ment announced that it had granted a sweeping
concession in Asia Minor to a supposedly Amer-
ican group, headed by Admiral Chester, U. S.
Navy, retired. More than a thousand miles of
railways, with ports, and a modern city at An-
gora, were to be built by the Chester group at

502

THE EASTERN QUESTION

an estimated cost of $300,000,000, in return for
which the right to minerals and oil was granted
the Americans from Mosul to Samsun, a country
believed to be abounding in undeveloped wealth.

Although the Chester group did not seem to
have financial backing to cope with a concession
of this magnitude, and was not taken seriously by
financiers in New York, London, and Paris, the
French Government made a vigorous protest,
through General Pelle at Constantinople, refus-
ing to recognize the validity of the part of the
concession relating to the railway outlet to the
Black Sea. The French claimed that the Samsun
Railway concession had already been granted to
a French group in 19 14, before the outbreak of
the war, in return for a loan on which heavy in-
stalments had been paid by Paris to Constanti-
nople. The British Government declared that
Turkey had no authority to grant a concession
involving the oil and minerals and projected rail-
ways of the Mosul region. The feeling aroused
over the Chester concession, and the subsequent
attempt of British and French bankers to have it
set aside and a trade monopoly in Asia Minor
granted to them, indicated that the negotiators of
the Entente Powers at Lausanne were primarily
representing the commercial interests of their
countries.

The Turks fished so well in these troubled

503

EUROPE SINCE 1918

waters that they secured many more modifica-
tions of the proposed treaty — until it came to the
point that Mustafa Kemal Pasha, through the
greed of the European Powers, was securing
their acquiescence on every point that did not in-
volve directly their pocketbooks. Only on the
capitulations — or rather the underlying principle
of the capitulations — did the Entente Powers
hold out. They wanted some sort of protection
for foreign business interests in Turkey. France
waived every moral issue. She stood firm only
on the one point that French holders of the Ot-
toman public debt should receive interest in gold,
not paper as the Turks insisted.

Because of the new Greek army Venizelos was
able to win the abandonment by Turkey of claims
to a war indemnity. Greece agreed to admit that
she owed an indemnity, and to give Turkey con-
trol of the railway station of Adrianople at Kara-
gatch on the left bank of the Maritza ; in return,
Turkey admitted that Greece was too poor to pay
an indemnity. It was a typical Oriental bargain.

But the Eastern Question was not solved.
The Lausanne Conference did not even mark a
distinct forward step. This was seen when the
Bulgarians overthrew Stambulisky. The Turks
are back in Thrace.

504

CHAPTER XXV

THE DISARMAMENT QUESTION
BEFORE THE WASHINGTON
CONFERENCE

OBSERVERS of European politics inva-
riably write that the verdict of General
Elections is the result of a number of
causes, and that it is difficult to assert how a so-
called paramount issue would have been decided
had not other considerations entered in to confuse
and influence the judgment of the electors. If
this be true in European countries enjoying rep-
resentative institutions, how much more true is
it of the United States, where elections are held
at stated intervals, and where great issues can
never be brought before the country as they are
in Europe? The American executive is vested
with great powers, is not dependent upon Con-
gress, and enjoys office for a fixed period. Mid-
way in the Presidential term a national election
is held that has no power to change the policies
of the administration. When Presidential year
arrives, the outs are determined to become the
ins. A moot question is found — it is sometimes
a question of secondary importance — around

505

EUROPE SINCE 1918

which the campaign centers. Is it safe to as-
sume that the people cast their votes upon the
merits of this question, throwing aside all other
issues ?

When Mr. Wilson, returning from Paris with
the Treaty of Versailles, failed to secure its ratifi-
cation without reservations by the Senate, he ap-
pealed directly to the people and declared that the
Presidential election of 1920 would be a "solemn
referendum" on the question of our entry into
the League of Nations. Eminent Republicans
who were convinced pro-Leaguers announced
their intention of sticking by their party, and
begged others to do so, on the ground that a vote
for Mr. Harding was not a vote against Amer-
ican participation in world affairs. They de-
plored the attitude of politicians in both parties,
who had never considered the League issue on its
merits, and expressed their belief that the cause
of international cooperation would gain more by
the election of Mr. Harding than by the election
of Mr. Cox. They based this opinion upon the
Republican platform, which did not reject the
idea of international cooperation, but only op-
posed the League of Nations without reserva-
tions, as Woodrow Wilson would have it. Give
the Republican administration the chance, and
we should be in the League more quickly than if
the Democrats remained in power, they argued.

506

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

It is true that the Republican candidate stood
on a platform, binding us to take the initiative in
bringing the nations of the world together. As
was so frequently said during the campaign, none
was opposed to the attainment, with the coopera-
tion of the United States, of a new world order
through a properly constituted and properly
functioning League of Nations. "We are not
against a league of nations, and we should even
have entered the Versailles League, had we been
allowed to make the strictly necessary reserva-
tions," said the Republicans. "The issue is the
Versailles Covenant without reservations safe-
guarding the liberty of action of the United
States."

Almost immediately after his inauguration Mr.
Harding declared that the American Govern-
ment was studying the problem of how we could
best help Europe, and pointed out the obvious fact
that the burden of heavy armaments was the
main cause of the inability of European states to
put into execution programs for economic re-
habilitation. Although the victory had resulted
in the complete disarmament of their enemies, the
Entente Powers were spending more money for
military purposes than before the war. So was
the United States, for that matter. The question
of limiting land armaments, however, was com-
plicated by the reparations question and the Bol-

507

EUROPE SINCE 1918

shevist menace. Could not a beginning be made
in limiting naval armaments ? The Principal Al-
lied and Associated Powers had complete and ab-
solute control of the seas. The German and Rus-
sian navies no longer existed. Why, then, the
mad race for more battle-ships? The victors
could only be building against one another.

President Harding invited into his Cabinet two
men peculiarly qualified to advise him. No out-
standing figure in American life had enjoyed a
better opportunity to study European conditions
during the war and the Peace Conference than
Herbert Hoover. The new secretary of state,
Republican candidate at the preceding election,
was an enthusiastic protagonist of American co-
operation in world affairs. The President gave
Mr. Hughes real authority in the State Depart-
ment, and was not jealous of sharing with him
what glory might accrue from success in admin-
istration policies.

President Harding and his advisers could not
misinterpret the strong sentiment that prevailed
throughout the United States, irrespective of
party lines, to cut down the army and to modify
the naval building program that was an inher-
itance of the Wilson administration. Generals
'Pershing and Bliss were the first to recognize the
connection between a reduction of the military and
naval establishments of the United States and the

508

DISARMAMENT QUESTION

general problem of world peace. The press
hailed with satisfaction their declarations. Then
Senator Borah introduced a resolution, as fol-
lows :

The President is authorized and requested to invite the
Governments of Great Britain and Japan to send repre-
sentatives to a conference, which shall be charged with
the duty of promptly entering into an understanding or
agreement by which the naval program of each of the
said Governments, to wit, the United States, Great
Britain, and Japan, shall be substantially reduced annually
during the next five years to such an extent and upon
such terms as may be agreed upon, which understanding
or agreement is to be reported to the respective Govern-
ments for approval.

The proposition for a naval holiday was in-
dorsed by a conference in Chicago in May, at-
tended by official representatives of the Federal
Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the
National Catholic Welfare Council, and the Cen-
tral Conference of American Synagogues. Public
sentiment enabled Senator Borah to get his reso-
lution adopted as a rider to the Naval Appropria-
tion Bill. The details of the plan had to be
worked out carefully by the State Department.
From a practical point of view, it did not seem
possible to the Administration to ignore France
and Italy, and Secretary Hughes advised the
President that any discussion of naval armaments

509

EUROPE SINCE 1918

would inevitably bring up the subject of the bal-
ance of power in the Pacific. A proposal for
a naval holiday, to be entertained by Japan, would
have to take into account China and the Anglo-
Japanese alliance.

After these matters had been considered by
sounding the powers interested, identical invi-
tations were sent to Great Britain, Japan, France,
and Italy, inviting them to participate "in a con-
ference on the subject of limitation of armament,
in connection with which Pacific and Far Eastern
questions will also be discussed, to be held in
Washington on November 11, 1921." An in-
vitation was sent also to China, in which the
paragraph concerning naval armaments was
omitted.

The unrecognized Far Eastern Republic of
Siberia, Belgium, Portugal, and Holland asked
for invitations, on the ground that any interna-
tional discussion of Pacific and Far Eastern ques-
tions interested them as vitally as the other pow-
ers, On October 4, Belgium, Portugal, and Hol-
land were asked to send delegates. The request
of Siberia was refused, with the following ex-
planation :

In the absence of a single, recognized Russian Govern-
ment, the protection of legitimate Russian interests must
devolve as a moral trusteeship upon the whole Confer-
ence. It is regrettable that the Conference, for reasons

5io

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

quite beyond the control of the participating Powers, is
to be deprived of the advantage of Russian cooperation
in its deliberations. But it is not to be conceived that the
Conference will take decisions prejudicial to legitimate
Russian interests or which would in any manner violate
Russian rights.

It should be noted that the term "limitation of
armament" was used in the original invitation
and in all the later official correspondence con-
cerning the conference. The American Gov-
ernment was anxious not to lead the people to
expect too much of this first attempt to get the
powers together to listen to reason on the subject
of competitive armaments, and it was necessary
to show that a naval holiday agreement was a
benefit that could not be gained without the as-
sumption of definite responsibilities and pledges
in regard to international questions, the method
proposed for the solution of which had hitherto
been force alone.

The success of the Washington Conference de-
pended upon the fulfilment of four conditions, the
first of which affected all the powers participat-
ing, and the second, third, and fourth of which af-
fected Great Britain, Japan, and the United
States respectively. The conditions were : ( i )
that matters other than those on the agenda be
rigorously excluded from the discussions; (2)
that the British be willing to give up the suprem-

511

EUROPE SINCE 1918

acy of the sea; (3) that Japan agree to accept
an agreement regulating the status quo in the
Pacific in return for consenting to an inferiority
in sea power and the abrogation of the Anglo-
Japanese alliance: and (4) that the United
States ratify a treaty binding us to cooperate with
other powers in maintaining a fixed political
status quo for a period of years in Eastern Asia
and the Pacific. Without these conditions, limi-
tation of naval armament was impracticable. If
they were fulfilled, nothing that France, Italy, the
lesser European states, China, or Russia (for
the time being) could say, would wreck the adop-
tion and execution of the proposed program of
the conference.

In view of the many problems confronting
Japan in world politics, discussion of which is be-
yond the scope of this book, it was predicted freely
by Far Eastern experts that Japan would make
embarrassing demands at the conference, and that
the refusal to accede to them would lead to the
withdrawal of Japan. But the same irresistible
current of public opinion, voiced by a war-weary
and tax-ridden people, forced Japanese statesmen
to enter the conference with the idea that failure
to arrive at an agreement was unthinkable. In
October, just as the delegation was leaving,
Tokio newspaper comment indicated this. For
example, the "Yomiuri" said:

512

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

As to the questions of population and food, these are,
of course, matters of life and death, and it is necessary
to make efforts at every possible opportunity to secure
an understanding with the Powers. But at the same
time ... all intelligent men in this country are unan-
imous in taking the stand that there is no other means
of solving these problems except by making our policy
toward China thoroughly pacific and economic and by
thus developing our trade and industry. ... It is urged
that the open door and equal opportunity are synony-
mous with equality of races, and that as such race equality
should be proposed to the Conference. If the Japanese
delegates should withdraw in case that proposal is re-
jected, Japan might be the victor from the point of view
of international morality, but the practical result would
be greater isolation. We cannot afford to attend the
Conference in expectation of increased international
isolation.

The British had long known that it was hope-
less to expect to continue indefinitely the effort
to keep ahead of the United States in naval con-
struction. They were pitted against a people
possessing superior wealth and means of produc-
tion, whose Government was already committed
to the elaborate program adopted in 191 6. It
was better to adopt the principle of equality of
sea-power with the United States than to find
themselves outclassed within the next decade.
While it was true that American sentiment had
turned against extravagance in naval construc-
tion, refusal on the part of the British Govern-

5i3

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ment to accept limitation of armament on the
basis of equality would undoubtedly have resulted
in a determination of the Americans not only to
go ahead with their program but to match any
program Great Britain might adopt as a counter
measure. British public opinion did not regard
the United States as a potential enemy, as had
been the case with Germany, and as would be
the case with any other European country or
Japan. Public opinion in the British self-gov-
erning dominions was in favor of the termina-
tion of the Japanese alliance, and this fact had
to be taken into account by the British Admiralty.
The British faced graciously a condition, and ac-
cepted it.

Disarmament, or rather limitation of armament,
had become a policy almost universally favored
among Americans. There was something of re-
ligious fervor in the spirit with which the Ameri-
cans opened the conference. The program pro-
posed by Secretary Hughes meant relief from
taxation, of course. But to the man in the street
it signified far more than that. Looking at the
problem of both land and sea armaments from a
more academic standpoint than the other Powers
could afford to adopt, the American people be-
lieved that the naval holiday was the first step to-
ward the genuine reestablishment of peace and
good will among nations. They were taken

5H

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

somewhat aback when it developed during the
conference that the agreement limiting arma-
ments would have to be accompanied by other
agreements that appealed less to the imagination
and awakened again the fear of foreign entangle-
ments. But in order to secure the first agree-
ment the Senate felt that it did not dare to re-
fuse to ratify a four-power treaty, binding the
principal Pacific powers to respect one another's
Pacific territories.1

When the conference finished its work at the
beginning of February, there was dissatisfaction
in many quarters in America. Some felt that the
naval holiday should have included sweeping re-

1 The treaties recommended by the Washington Conference
were :

(1) A five-power treaty involving the scrapping of sixty-eight
capital ships, the restriction of the tonnage of navies and of
fortification in the Far East, and a ten-year naval holiday.

(2) A five-power treaty outlawing the use of submarines as
an agency of attack on merchant ships and prohibiting the use
of poison-gas.

(3) A nine-power treaty stabilizing the conditions in the Far
East and reiterating the open-door principle in regard to China.

(4) A nine-power treaty making a beginning of the division
of Chinese customs, abolishing foreign post-offices, and releasing
the Chinese Government from the obligation to keep funds lying
idle in foreign banks.

(5) A four-power treaty binding the principal Pacific powers
to respect one another's territory in the Pacific and to confer
when the peace of the Pacific is threatened. (This treaty abro-
gated the existing Anglo-Japanese treaty.)

(6) An agreement between Japan and China for the restora-
tion of the German lease in Shantung, coupled with declaration
of the willingness of Great Britain to renounce the lease of
Wei-hai-wei and of France to renounce the lease of Kwang-
chau-Wan.

515

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ductions and a fixed ratio in other kinds of naval
craft than capital ships. Others argued that the
conference, before breaking up, should have
bound the participating powers to reassemble in
the near future to consider land armaments. All
believed that the old principles of world politics
were too much in evidence in the treatment of
China. But none was able to contest the state-
ment of President Harding that the Washington
Conference was epoch-making in that it marked
the beginning, and a distinct step forward, on the
path toward a new method in putting an end to
competitive armaments.

The conference had also to its credit the di-
minishing, if not the removal, of causes for con-
flicts among the powers in the Far East. For a
time, at least, there would be no more loose talk
of the inevitable war between the United States
and Japan, and the suspicion and discord result-
ing from the Anglo- Japanese treaty improved the
relations between the United States and Great
Britain, between Great Britain and her self-
governing dominions, and between Great Britain
and China. The subsequent withdrawal of
Japan from Shantung indicated how the
Washington Conference had made possible
the fulfilment of Japan's promise to Presi-
dent Wilson. On the other hand, the char-
acter of the decisions made at the Washing-

5*6

THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

ton Conference was in no way harmful to the
interests of Russia, and will not be upset when
Russia becomes once more a factor in Far East-
ern affairs. The non-participation of Russia,
therefore, does not vitiate the work of the Wash-
ington Conference in the same way as the exclu-
sion of Russia from the deliberations of the Lau-
sanne Conference threatens to make ineffective
its decisions as to the Straits and other Near
Eastern problems.

From the success of the initiative of the Ameri-
can Government in the autumn of 1921, however,
it is unsafe to draw the analogy that we should
have been equally successful had we made the
same proposal that the powers come together in
our far-off and virtually neutral capital to make
a similar beginning in solving the imperative
problem of limitation of land armaments of Euro-
pean nations. We had a stake at Washington
which we do not have in Europe. We had vital
interests to safeguard which we do not have in
Europe. We had means of bringing pressure to
bear upon the participating powers which we
would not possess in a land disarmament con-
ference. At Washington we gained equality of
sea-power with the greatest naval nation with-
out having to pay heavily for it. No balance of
power question or any other subject of inter-
national politics in Europe affects our interests

5i7

EUROPE SINCE 1918

in the way the balance of power in the Pacific
and the amelioration of China's international
position do. At Washington we had the trump
argument that if competition in naval armaments
was not stopped we should be compelled to be-
come the predominant naval power.

Naval disarmament was essentially an extra-
European question. Land disarmament affects
primarily the nations of continental Europe, and
enters only secondarily and indirectly into Ameri-
can, British, and Japanese foreign policy. In con-
trast to the Washington Conference, the continu-
ation conferences in connection with the Paris
peace settlement, as we shall see in the next chap-
ter, have been dominated by France's fear of
Germany and the anxiety of the other benefici-
aries by the treaties to preserve their newly won
independence and increases of territory. Rep-
arations are subordinated to security, and secur-
ity seems still to depend upon standing armies.
Standing armies are a drain on the finances of
states already on the verge of bankruptcy. And,
inseparable from the question of reparations and
security, from the standpoint of the European
states, is the problem we vainly try to make a busi-
ness matter, the settlement of interallied debts.

5i8

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONTINUATION CONFERENCES
FROM 1920 TO 1923

T^HE peace discussions at Paris continued,

as we have seen, throughout the year

19 19. The Paris Conference had begun
with an imposing array of statesmen from all over
the world. Heads of governments and ministers
of foreign affairs were the principal delegates of
their respective countries. After the signing of
the Treaty of Versailles the big fry went home.
It was manifest that they could not stay away
from their duties indefinitely, even if there were
some of the most important matters affecting the
peace settlement still undecided. But when De-
cember came and the Christmas holidays ap-
proached, it was also manifest that the questions
still under discussion were too complicated and
too vital to the political fortunes of the Entente
Cabinets for a -conference of subordinates to pass
upon. Agreement, it was recognized, could be
reached only by the same method that had pre-
vailed in drafting the German and Austrian
treaties, i. e., direct and secret bargaining among
the heads of governments.

5i9

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The Peace Conference lost its importance when
the "Big Four" departed at the end of June. It
petered out — there is no other way of expressing
it — at the end of November, leaving unsolved
the problem of the relations of the victors to
Russia. The unfinished business on the con-
ference agenda has been bothering the world ever
since. The principal questions upon which the
conference had failed to pass were: (1) set-
tlement of the total sum Germany was to pay for
reparations; (2) measures to apply if Germany
proved unable or unwilling to do the bidding of
the Reparations Commission; (3) apportioning
among the victors the cash and the deliveries in
kind received from Germany; (4) what should
constitute German disarmament and how this was
to be brought about ; ( 5 ) how Upper Silesia could
be detached by a plebiscite from Germany; (6)
the future of Memel; (7) the status of Eastern
Galicia, Bessarabia, Albania, and Montenegro;
(8) how the eastern frontiers of Poland were
to be determined; (9) the relations of the League
of Nations toward mandated territories; and
(10) the terms of the treaty with Turkey, which
involved the claims of Greece and the northern
frontiers of the French and British mandates.
Later the question of interallied debts was raised
by France and Italy, who insisted that the indebt-
edness of the victors to one another was insepa-

520

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

rably linked with the indebtedness of Germany to
the victors.

Had the victors possessed common interests in
Europe and the Near East, most of these ques-
tions could have been left to experts, whose com-
promises would have been accepted as reasonable
by the common sense of the governments and
peoples concerned. Foreign policies of the En-
tente Powers, however, were hopelessly diver-
gent, and governments had to take into consider-
ation not only the defense of national interests
abroad but also the retention of power when hos-
tile parties at home were ready to seize upon any
pretext to oust them. At the best, when govern-
ments have simply domestic issues to face, keep-
ing the confidence of parliaments is a difficult
task. In passing judgment upon the statesmen
of the Entente Powers and the United States,
whose efforts at constructive peace-making failed
so signally, we must remember that they were not
free agents, but that they had to be thinking
constantly of currents of public opinion that
threatened to sweep them at any moment from
their high positions.

The necessity of continuation conferences
arose from the lack of common interest in en-
forcing, and therefore of power to enforce, the
terms of the peace settlement which all seemingly
accepted in the first flush of victory. Statesmen

521

EUROPE SINCE 1918

and peoples alike soon discovered that the treat-
ies contained provisions which, if literally inter-
preted, did not satisfy their real or fancied in-
terests, nor the ambitions the attainment of which
they believed the victory should have made pos-
sible. The League of Nations came into exist-
ence at the beginning of 1920. The United
States refused to join it. The Entente Powers,
for the reasons given above, did not feel that they
could use it except as a convenient and amenable
agency to further their own policies. Until the
world-wide status quo was definitely settled by
the harmonizing of British, French, and Italian
interests, it was deemed better to continue to use
the Supreme Council, a conference of ambas-
sadors, and, best of all, meetings of Entente
premiers. Continuation conferences, therefore,
in which both the first and last words were
spoken by the premiers of the three big powers,
have been attempting for nearly four years to
grapple with the unfinished business of the Paris
Conference.

These conferences have been large and small,
formal and informal, some lasting months and
others merely week-ends, but all have been domi-
nated— even those called for other purposes and
dealing ostensibly with other questions — by what
has come to be known as the reparations issue.

The reparations issue, in turn, has never been

522

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

discussed on its merits, as a problem of economics.
Security for France, through the permanent crip-
pling of Germany, has lurked in the background
of every discussion in these international gather-
ings.

The first of these conferences, held in London
and Paris in January and February, 1920, were
too near the exchange of the ratifications of the
Treaty of Versailles for reparations to be at the
front. Italy secured from France and Great
Britain consent to make Fiume a free state, in
exchange for a modification of Italian "rights"
in Dalmatia, as provided for by the 191 5 treaty,
and the recognition of her paramount interests
in Albania. The United States protested against
the decision of the Paris meeting to change Al-
banian frontiers in favor of Serbia and Greece.
The Albanian question, as we have seen in an-
other chapter, was finally solved by the ability
of the Albanians to defend their independence
against Serbians and Italians. The Adriatic
question was left to direct negotiations between
Rome and Belgrade.

The first continuation conference to attract
public attention was that of San Remo, whose im-
portant decisions in regard to the treaty with
Turkey have been commented upon in earlier
chapters. It is not generally realized that on the
agenda of San Remo the Ottoman Empire oc-

523

EUROPE SINCE 1918

cupied third place. The first subject was the ex-
ecution of the Treaty of Versailles, which was
beginning to cause serious difficulties, and the
second sufjject Russian affairs, which had been
going very badly, indeed, for the Entente Powers
owing to the collapse of counter-revolutionary
movements.

San Remo marked the first difference of opin-
ion between Great Britain and France on the
reparations question. Lloyd George, seconded
by Nitti, laid down the thesis to which the British
and the Italians (until Mussolini) adhered with
more or less consistency in succeeding confer-
ences. The French began to realize that British
and Italian interests were going to conflict with
their purpose to use reparations claims to prevent
the economic rehabilitation of central Europe.
France was able to induce the other two powers
to agree in principle upon coercive measures
against Germany in return for yielding to Lloyd
George's proposals for the Near East and Nitti's
contention that trade relations would have to be
resumed with Russia, even though the Soviet did
remain in control. At San Remo, also, a
secret oil arrangement was concluded between
France and Great Britain, against which the
United States later protested, and also a new de-
limitation of spheres of influence in the Near
East.

524

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

On two points, however, the French yielded
to the Anglo-Italian view as to method in enforc-
ing the Treaty of Versailles. France agreed to
take no punitive steps without consulting her
allies, and — very reluctantly — to have German
delegates invited to confer with representatives
of the Entente on deliveries in kind and other
means of making reparations payments. For
this purpose it was arranged that the Entente
Powers should meet at Hythe on May 15 to dis-
cuss the schedule of German payments and should
then summon the Germans to come to Spa with
definite, concrete proposals for fulfilling their ob-
ligations under the treaty.

Between Hythe and Spa two additional con-
ferences were necessary, at Boulogne-sur-Mer
and Brussels, to fix the amount of the indemnity
and decide how it should be apportioned. Ray-
mond Poincare, president of the Reparations
Commission, resigned in protest against what he
called an infraction of the treaty, which had
stipulated that the amount of reparations should
be determined by the commission, after they had
examined the extent of Germany's resources.
One of the most important functions of the com-
mission, declared M. Poincare in a public state-
ment, was being usurped by the Entente premiers.
All the world knew, however, that the pro rata
distribution schedule was dependent upon the

525

EUROPE SINCE 1918

total sum the victors hoped to receive. Hythe,
Boulogne, and Brussels revealed serious diver-
gence of views among the victors, large and
small. Italy especially felt that the improbability
of ever getting any money out of Austria should
be made up to her by a larger proportion of the
German indemnity.

It was not until the delegates had actually come
together at Spa that the proportionate shares in
the German indemnity were determined as fol-
lows : France, 52 per cent. ; Great Britain, 22 ;
Italy, 10; Belgium, 8; Serbia, 5; the other states,
3. In addition, Belgium was allowed to trans-
fer her entire war debt to the account of Ger-
many and was given priority in the first gold pay-
ments. No amount of talking could bring agree-
ment upon the total sum to be demanded, and the
schedule of annuities.

The Spa Conference, convened on July 5, 1920,
gave the Germans their first chance to discuss in
open meeting the Treaty of Versailles. But this
did not do them much good. On the contrary,
after heated debates, threats were used to back
arguments. An agreement was added to the
Treaty of Versailles, defining the monthly
amount of indemnities in kind, and reaffirm-
ing the right of the victors to insist upon the
punishment of war criminals and the surrender of
arms in the possession of German civilians and
security police. Later in the summer new dif-

526

'CONFERENCES 1920 TO 1923

ferences of opinion between British and French
were revealed in conferences at Lympne and
over the aid that should be given to Poland and
to the new counter-revolutionary movement of
General Wrangel in Russia.

At Spa the Entente Powers had promised Ger-
many credits for food and raw materials to make
possible the resumption of German production:
for it was evident that Germany's ability to trans-
fer wealth abroad in the form of gold payments
was exceedingly limited; that if a serious begin-
ning of large-scale indemnity payments was to
be made, Germany would have to sell manufac-
tured articles in foreign markets; and that the
factory-workers and miners could not produce
effectively unless they were properly fed. At the
suggestion of British economists, who had the ear
of Lloyd George, a conference of experts met at
Brussels on December 16, 1920, to make recom-
mendations to the Entente governments to guide
them in granting Germany the credits necessary
to render practicable reparations demands. This
conference reported that a total indemnity of
100,000,000,000 gold marks was possible, pro-
vided Germany received extensive credits for
food and raw materials purchased abroad, and
that the annual scale of payments be flexibly
arranged to meet whatever economic situation
might develop.

The French press and public opinion did not

527

EUROPE SINCE 1918

receive in a kindly fashion the recommendations
of the experts. It was pointed out that some
months earlier, at Lympne, the British had sub-
scribed to a joint declaration to the effect that
"the suffering and economic ruin resulting from
the war should not be borne by the nations who
did not cause it." By extending credits to Ger-
many France would be paying to Germany more
than she would receive for a long time, and it
was preposterous that Germany be allowed to re-
gain her old economic prosperity while the north
of France was still in ruins. This was the
French attitude when the conference of Paris
opened on January 24, 192 1, to fix the repara-
tions bill and the method by which it should be
paid. The discussion was removed from eco-
nomic to political ground, and it has remained
there since that day. In the beginning, both
Great Britain and France had regarded the rep-
arations problem from a political standpoint. In
1920 the British shifted to an economic stand-
point. This caused the divergence that was
evident at Paris in January, 1921, and in all
the conferences that have followed. In 1921
the British remonstrated, but in the end they
yielded. After two years, in 1923, they finally
felt that it was necessary to break with France
on the ground that persistence in demanding the
impossible would wreck the economic structure
of Europe and create an impasse, resulting in ir-

528

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

reparable harm to victors as well as vanquished.

It will be remembered that the treaty gave until
May 1, 1 92 1, for the total amount of indemnity
to be fixed. Germany bound herself in advance
to accept whatever sum the victors decided upon,
to agree to make payments in the way they de-
manded, and not to consider as an act of war any
punitive measure they might take to enforce their
will. Stipulations of this kind, which had never
before been written into a treaty, placed Germany
completely at the mercy of her conquerors. They
could make upon her any demands they saw fit,
however impossible to fulfil, and could undertake
reprisals if what could not be done was not done.
The only protection to Germany, now that she
was disarmed, lay in the fact that her creditors
were several, who might not all agree that her
permanent ruin would be to their best interests.

The Paris Conference met on January 24, 192 1.
On the first day Marshal Foch declared that Ger-
many had failed to fulfil the disarmament clauses
of the Treaty of Versailles, and that the danger
was so great that France would be justified, as
a military precaution alone, in occupying the
Ruhr Valley. This proposal, although tentative
in form, as if to try out the Allies, brought an
immediate and strenuous protest from British
and Italians. The two delegations stood together
also in rejecting France's demand that the in-
demnity be fixed at 400,ocxd,ooo,ooo gold marks,

529

EUROPE SINCE 1918

There was a lively argument between Lloyd
George and Doumer. When the latter said that
it was reasonable to expect 17,000,000,000 marks
per annum from German exports, of which 12,-
000,000,000 could be taken by the Reparations
Commission, Lloyd George retorted that the cal-
culation was absurd. How could Germany pay
for raw materials, coal, labor, etc., on the basis
of retaining five billions out of seventeen billions?
After five days of acrimonious debate, in which
British and Italians pleaded for a practicable total
sum, a compromise was effected. It was decided
that Germany should pay in forty-two annual in-
stallments 226,000,000,000 gold marks, and for
the same period an annual tax of 12 per cent on
her exports. At the first default the Allies
should have the right to take any measures, finan-
cial or military, that they saw fit. The German
Government was summoned to send a delegation
to London, after four weeks, "to agree to the de-
cisions of the Paris Conference."

At the London Conference, on March 1, Dr.
Simons, the German foreign minister, declared
that Germany never could pay any such sum,
whose annual instalments were far beyond her
total surplus wealth in the years of her greatest
prosperity before the war. He made a counter-
offer of 50,000,000,000 gold marks, less 20,000,-
000,000 already paid (according to German
figures), but pointed out that even this sum was

53o

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

possible only if the decision in regard to Upper
Silesia did not go against Germany. Dr. Simons
suggested that if the value of payments already
made was disputed, a joint commission should
be appointed to determine it. Lloyd George de-
livered a long speech to the German delegation on
March 3, in which he ridiculed their proposals
and described them as "simply provocative."
Lloyd George two years later was taken to task
in Parliament for his attitude at this London
Conference. He frankly admitted that he knew
the absurdity of the Entente program, but that
it was insisted upon in order to force from Ger-
many a counter-offer up to her real capacity to
pay, and also that other factors entered into the
decision of the British Cabinet to stand with the
French. These other factors were, as we have
seen in other chapters, the desire to keep France
from opposing the British plan in the Near East
by supporting French plans on the Rhine.

France, Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium sent
a joint note to Germany, threatening to levy an
import tax of 50 per cent on German goods en-
tering their countries, and to force Germany to
pay the tax, which would be pooled and divided
as indemnity. The German Cabinet was firm in
its refusal to pay down 12,000,000,000 gold
marks on account before May 1 and to agree to
the London program. Lloyd George himself
proposed an ultimatum in which military ocupa-

53i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

tion of the Ruhr Valley was threatened if Ger-
many did not accept without reservation the in-
demnity schedule fixed at Paris on January 29.
On May 5 Lloyd George told Parliament that he
was sure of Germany's yielding, for "with the
Ruhr gone industrial Germany withers: it can-
not exist." With Marshal Foch on the Rhine
and ready to march in, the German Government
agreed to the Paris program. It was the only
means of preventing the Ruhr occupation.

An economic conference met at Brussels on
September 24, at the suggestion of the League
Council, to take steps to prevent financial and
economic chaos in Europe. Although invited, the
United States refused to participate in the Brus-
sels Conference, declaring that it was useless to
do anything for European rehabilitation until old
scores were marked off and a spirit of solidarity
was developed. The Dutch expert, M. ter Meu-
len, proposed to establish in the countries on the
verge of collapse a reservoir of collateral to be
drawn upon if necessary to cover credits for im-
ports, under the supervision of financial experts
appointed by the League of Nations. At the end
of the year French and British financiers met at
Paris to discuss the organization of a corporation
to finance the restoration of Europe, in which the
United States and Germany would have a part.
Because political conditions and not economic
theories dominated in Europe, the conferences at-

532

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

tended by economists and "bankers had no result.
These non-political gatherings looked at the
reparations question on its merits, and therefore
made recommendations in regard to Germany,
Poland, Austria, and other smaller countries
which, if adopted, would have infringed upon the
treaties of the Paris settlement. The experts
and bankers were accused of trying to upset the
treaties. They could not free themselves from
this accusation ; for they were practical men, liv-
ing in a world of realities, and not politicians,
gambling on futures.

On January 6, 1922, the Entente premiers met
with the Reparations Commission at Cannes.
The Germans were asked to come to Paris and to
hold themselves in readiness to be summoned to
Cannes if needed. Lloyd George offered France
a defensive alliance in return for modifying the
French attitude toward Germany, which he said
would keep Europe indefinitely in turmoil.
Premier Briand was inclined to accept the British
offer, which would have replaced in substance the
defunct Anglo-American understanding to come
to the defense of France in case of a new German
aggression. But bitter opposition developed in
the Chamber of Deputies. Briand hurried back
to Paris to explain the Cannes negotiations and
defend his decision to meet Great Britain half-
way. He called for a vote of confidence, which
was refused. Former President Poincare, leader

533

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of the opposition to concessions to Germany, suc-
ceeded Briand.

The change in government in France put an
end to the hope of Entente solidarity and fore-
shadowed the military occupation of the Ruhr.
Poincare agreed, however, to another conference,
proposed by the Italians, which was to meet at
Genoa in the first week of March, "of an economic
and financial nature, of all the European powers,
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Rus-
sia included." In the meantime, the Reparations
Commission was to allow a temporary delay in
indemnity payments, without considering Ger-
many in default, contingent upon the turning over
of 31,000,000 gold marks every ten days. The
United States declined an invitation to partici-
pate in the Genoa Conference, on the ground that
the matters it would consider were of purely
European concern.

The new Poincare Cabinet asked for a month's
delay in convening the Genoa Conference, and
stipulated that revision of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles should not be discussed, and also that Soviet
Russia must acknowledge the foreign indebt-
edness of Czarist Russia before the question
of recognizing the Moscow Government was
brought before the conference.

For the first time the vanquished and the Rus-
sians met together with the victors, when dele-
gates from all the European countries assembled

534

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

at Genoa on April 10, 1922. This fact seemed
to augur well for the success of the conference.
Up to this time the Entente Powers had failed
to reestablish peace in Europe because they had
outlawed half of Europe. Whether Germany and
Russia deserved to be put in Coventry is not to
the point. None disputed the justice of insist-
ing that Germany live up to the obligations she
had assumed in order to escape the overrunning
of her territory (as she had overrun for four
years the territory of other nations) and the dis-
agreeable consequences of defeat in a war in which
she had been the challenger. None was inclined
to receive Soviet Russia with open arms into the
councils of the nations of whose political and so-
cial institutions she was the outspoken enemy.
On the other hand, the purpose for which the
conference had been called could not succeed with-
out the cooperation of Germany and Russia.
The statesmen of the Entente Powers could not
hope to ameliorate economic and political condi-
tions in Europe unless they possessed and were
willing to use the means of coercing Germany and
Russia or unless they intended to treat these other
two great powers on the basis of give and take,
as they treated each other.

Because neither alternative was considered, the
Genoa Conference was a complete failure. The
Entente Powers began wrong. They held pre-
liminary meetings to decide upon their program,

535

EUROPE SINCE 1918

assuming that the role of the German and Rus-
sian delegations would be simply that of acquies-
cence. The two outcast powers retaliated in a
startling way. They signed a treaty at Rapallo,
whose terms were published, reestablishing dip-
lomatic relations with each other and settling war
claims and financial obligation by reciprocal can-
celation. The Treaty of Rapallo torpedoed the
conference. The Entente Powers were not pre-
pared to waive reciprocally their claims against
one another, much less treat with vanquished Ger-
many and faithless Russia on any such basis.
After several weeks of futile debate, during which
the Entente Powers maintained the attitude they
had adopted in the beginning1, the conference
broke up.1 Further negotiations concerning
minor matters in which agreement might be
reached were laid over for a conference to meet
at Amsterdam in June. The principal questions
upon which the rehabilitation of Europe depended
seemed impossible of solution.

Despite its failure, the Genoa Conference was
a useful meeting; for it cleared up a number of
misapprehensions, and served as a warning and
indication of the general tendencies of the policies
of the participating nations. For instance, be-

1 For a fuller discussion of Russia's role at Genoa and the
reasons actuating the attitude of the Entente Powers, see Chapter
X, "The Internal Evolution and Foreign Policy of Russia under
the Soviets."

536

<

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

hind Russia's intractability and truculence was
evident her anxiety to make concessions to world-
wide public opinion. Her leaders no longer
gloried in her isolation, and they frankly ad-
mitted the failure of some of their theories and
the very limited success of others. After four
years they began to show themselves sensitive.
This proved that they were beginning to recog-
nize the dependence of Russia upon the rest of
the world. When put to the test, the Germans
were as unwilling as the Turks later showed
themselves at Lausanne to break with the Oc-
cidental powers and throw in their fortunes un-
reservedly with Russia. The intention of Bel-
gium to pool her interests with France was also
revealed. But the most striking lesson of the
Genoa Conference was the coming to the front
of the theory that reparations could not be con-
sidered apart from interallied debts, and that
France and Italy saw in future bargaining over
a reduction of their reparations claims the pos-
sibility of being freed from their indebtedness to
Great Britain and the United States.

It had long been sensed by the American State
Department that French and Italian statesmen
had this idea in mind. Fear of walking into a
trap or being put in an awkward and ungracious
position had much to do with the American de-
cision to remain aloof from these conferences,
a policy which had first been stated by our unof-

537

EUROPE SINCE 1918

ficial representatives at the Brussels Conference.
The British Government determined to antici-
pate bargaining on any such basis. Two days
before Poincare came to London to confer with
Lloyd George in August, Secretary Balfour is-
sued a statement on interallied debts in which he
skilfully tried to "pass the buck" to the United
States. He declared that it would be impossible
for Great Britain to entertain any proposition to
reduce or cancel the sums owed her by her Euro-
pean allies so long as the United States insisted
upon the repayment of the British war debt.
Had not Great Britain been a borrower from
the American Government in 1917 and 1918 be-
cause of the necessity imposed upon her of fur-
nishing credits to an almost equal amount to
European countries?

The Balfour note was issued on August 5.
On August 7 Poincare, accompanied by several
of his colleagues, arrived in London to confer
with the British Cabinet on coercive measures to
be taken against Germany. The French premier
was unmistakably disconcerted by the unexpected
declaration of British policy on interallied in-
debtedness. He knew very well that American
public opinion was against forgiving any of the
debts and that the comment of the American
press had been sarcastic and vehement. Uncle
Sam did not intend to pay the German war in-
demnity! Lloyd George and Poincare found

538

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

themselves in more hopeless disagreement than
after the Cannes Conference. It was only for
a moment that the Russo-German treaty had
thrown them into each other's arms. Things
were approaching a crisis in the Near East. Fa-
scismo was preparing to oust the Government in
Rome. The London Conference accomplished
nothing.

In the autumn of 1922 the startling events in
the Near East and the uncertainty as to what for-
eign policy for Italy would grow out of the coup
d'etat of Mussolini postponed for a few months
the Anglo-French rupture over reparations.
Poincare's mind was made up. But the negotia-
tions with Turkey and the assembling of the
Lausanne Conference were coupled with the
downfall of Lloyd George and the consequent
General Election. When the British electorate
returned a Conservative majority, it was believed
that the new Government, presided over by Mr.
Bonar Law, would be more amenable to the
French arguments. Lord Curzon, who remained
as foreign secretary, was showing himself very
friendly to France at Lausanne. Poincare be-
lieved that the time had come to have the Repa-
rations Commission declare Germany in default.
But opposition developed as strong as under the
Lloyd George Government. Bonar Law had
failed to recall Lord d'Abernon from Berlin, and
Sir John Bradbury was not superseded in the

539

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Reparations Commission. The British ambas-
sador to Berlin and the British member of the
Reparations Commission had been considered
"creatures of Lloyd George," and their retention
came as a blow to French public opinion.

In view of British opposition to going into
the Ruhr, M. Poincare might have postponed this
fateful action had it been in his power to do
so. But this was the program for carrying out
which he had been put in power just a year
earlier. The break had been as imminent with
the British then. Public opinion was growing
impatient, and it is beyond doubt that the Cham-
ber of Deputies, after the Christmas recess, would
have refused a vote of confidence if the Poincare
Cabinet had held back any longer. In judging
the responsibility for what followed, we must re-
member that it was with Poincare what it fre-
quently is with a leader in a crisis: go ahead or
get out. The policy adopted in such a case does
not represent the sober judgment of the states-
man, but only the determination of the politician
to remain in power.

In December Poincare had conferred with
Bonar Law and Mussolini in London. He knew
what was ahead of him. He conferred with his
Cabinet, who agreed that the Chamber of Depu-
ties would give the Government a free hand only
if the course of action France intended to take in
the matter of reparations was definitely stated.

540

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

Poincare appeared before the Chamber on De-
cember 16 and declared that France was deter-
mined upon measures of coercion against Ger-
many, as authorized by the Treaty of Versailles,
with or without the cooperation of Great Britain.
A vote of confidence was accorded by an over-
whelming majority.

The last continuation conference assembled at
Paris on January 2, 1923, and was attended by
three premiers, those of France, Great Britain,
and Belgium, and by a substitute for the Italian
premier. Its outcome was never in doubt; for
the irreconcilable points of view of Great Brit-
ain and France toward the problem of repara-
tions had long been evident. Already, on De-
cember 26, the Reparations Commission had de-
cided, against the vote of Great Britain, that
Germany was in voluntary default in wood de-
liveries for 1922. The British press for a long
time had been pointing out that there was little
hope of getting any money out of Germany if a
default should be declared, followed by punitive
measures.

Poincare and Bonar Law stated in detail their
proposals for dealing with Germany. Both sug-
gested reducing the amount to 50,000,000,000
gold marks, and agreed that if this were done
the concession should be accompanied by a de-
mand for comprehensive financial control of Ger-
many. The difference of opinion was over the

54i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

method of guarantees. Bonar Law asserted that
Great Britain would consent to the further occu-
pation of German territory only if Germany de-
faulted after the revised schedule went into effect,
and then only if the Allies were unanimous.
This meant, of course, a flat refusal to admit the
wisdom of the occupation of the Ruhr Valley.
France wanted to pay her debts to Great Britain
with reparation bonds issued by the Reparations
Commission. Great Britain retaliated by propos-
ing that the French and Italian gold deposited in
London during the war as security for advances
be now turned over to Great Britain in partial
payment of debts due to her. Italy presented
again the suggestions made by Mussolini at Lon-
don three weeks earlier. Mussolini had been in
sympathy with the Poincare program, both as
to productive guarantees through occupying more
German territory and as to the method by which
debtor allies should acquit their obligations to the
creditor ally; but the Italian Government was op-
posed to military action and would not pledge it-
self to cooperate with France and Belgium in oc-
cupying the Ruhr.

On the second day of the conference Poincare
tried in vain to get the British to agree to use the
French plan instead of theirs as the basis of dis-
cussion, and to admit as an accepted principle,
which it was not necessary to discuss, the French
contention that any moratorium should be accom-

542

CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

panied by the seizure of productive guarantees.
Bonar Law retorted that granting these two de-
mands would be equivalent to accepting the
French program. In the debate that followed,
only two facts emerged clearly : that Great Britain
did not believe that the Ruhr occupation would
force immense sums of money out of Germany,
while France did; and that France had made up
her mind to go ahead and take measures against
Germany, not only without Great Britain's aid,
but despite Great Britain's advice. The Brit-
ish premier bowed to the inevitable. He had
failed to dissuade Poincare; Poincare had failed
to persuade him. So they agreed to disagree.

The net result of three years of continuation
conferences is well summed up in the comment
of a mysterious anonymous writer in the Paris
"Figaro," who wrote on March 31, 1923 :

Since the Treaty of Versailles, where is the Entente?
Where was the Entente in the ten conferences which
ten times had diminished our proper share, and in the
shabby dealings which the British have repeatedly re-
sorted to against us? Where is the Entente when the
British confiscate our gold, when they keep Mr. Brads-
bury [sic] on the Reparations Commission to check our
demands, when they establish Lord d'Abernon at Berlin
to strengthen the resistance of the Germans?

543

CHAPTER XXVII

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD
OF FRANCE

THE American attitude toward post-bellum
problems is summed up in the four words
cut into the tomb of General Grant. We
prefer Grant's "Let us have peace" to Foch's
"The war is not ended." The British are even
more eager than we to settle European affairs in
such a way as to leave no open sores, no burden
of long-term military responsibilities on the Con-
tinent. Four hundred million people have to live
side by side, and, whatever the virtues and sins,
certain European nations cannot indefinitely lord
it over others, say the British. Those who have
been wronged ought to be compensated, those who
have been good ought to be rewarded, and those
who have been bad ought to be punished; but
practical common sense suggests limits to com-
pensations, rewards, and punishments. After
the Treaty of Versailles, Germany still has a pop-
ulation one and a half times that of France, and
outcast Russia is the largest country of Europe
in area, natural resources, and population.

In London and Washington, and to a large ex-

544

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

tent in Rome, also, there has been a tendency ever
since the war to place most of the blame upon
France for the unsettled state of affairs in the
world. In speeches of statesmen, in interviews
with "high officials," in inspired newspaper arti-
cles, Germany has been accused of stupidity and
lack of good faith in her tactics. But, coupled
with the complaints of Germany's conduct, hints,
inferences, sometimes open charges have abounded
that French policy is making the settlement of
every problem affecting the rehabilitation of Eu-
rope difficult, if not impossible. British, Italians,
and Americans, who have served on the various
commissions appointed to watch over the execu-
tion of the Treaty of Versailles, have been vir-
tually unanimous in condemning the French for
obstructionist tactics or an uncompromising at-
titude in conferences with the Germans ; for in-
spiring the Poles in their foolish ventures ; and for
intimidating the Belgians into a constantly pro-
vocative attitude toward the Germans, against
the better judgment of King Albert and his ad-
visers. Informed public opinion has gradually
come to feel that the Near Eastern policy of
France is cynical and opportunist, and that swash-
buckling militarism and the ambition to dominate
Europe have changed habitat from Berlin to
Paris.

The friends of France protest that their ad-
miration and confidence have not been shaken by

545

EUROPE SINCE 1918

what they read. But who does not confess to
misgivings about the invasion of the Ruhr ? Who
does not believe that Lloyd George and Bonar
Law have spoken more reasonably than Poincare ?
Who does not feel that the unsheathed sword of
France is retarding the establishment of peace in
Europe and throughout the world?

"What's the matter with France?" is not an
unjustified question, but we cannot answer it fairly
unless we consider its corollary, "What's the mat-
ter with ourselves?" Lest it be thought that I
do not understand and sympathize with the ex-
ceeding difficulty of the French people and Gov-
ernment in shaping their post-bellum policies, it is
wise to pause before going into the Ruhr with the
French, and outline the fears of France and their
justification. This will save us from becoming
too pharisaical !

We borrow a French word to express an idea
for which the French themselves use another
word. We speak of a person as being naive in
his reasoning or attitude, but the French would
say simpliste. Simplisme is the error in reason-
ing of neglecting elements of a problem that ought
to be considered in arriving at a solution. Be-
cause we are self-centered sentimentalists, we
Anglo-Saxons are simplistes. In building up
briefs to justify our actions and to condemn the
actions of others, we admit contingency only
when contingent factors affect us and have influ-

546

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

enced us. When others cry out, "But what would
you have done in our place?" our answer is, "We
are not in your place." The answer is final.
Thus do we dismiss disagreeable and unwelcome
conclusions.

Not only because it is unfair and unchivalrous,
but also because it is dangerous, we must avoid
comfortable and comforting simplisme in our
thinking about the European situation. It may
be true that the unsheathed sword of France is
disastrous to reconstruction and to the return of
normal conditions, but does it follow that France
is wrong in not having put back into the scabbard
her sword? Could France have sheathed her
sword before now? Can she afford to sheathe
it as long as the United States remains aloof,
with Britain tending to follow, from European
affairs? If Europe is still under arms in the fifth
year of "peace," is the fault solely, or even
primarily France's? Or is Germany to blame?
Or Poland? Can we look for the trouble in Bol-
shevism? Each of these questions opens up a
field for speculation. By the mouths of our
statesmen and the pens of our editorial writers
we criticize and denounce and advise, but until
we ask ourselves whether the attitude of France
may not be due to what we have done and what
we have left undone, we follow false leads. Win-
ning the war came through pooling of resources.
Will winning the peace come in any other way ?

547

EUROPE SINCE 1918

When May 1, 1921, was set as a date on which
the total amount of reparations due from Ger-
many to her victors should be fixed, it seemed a
long way off. American delegates urged that the
amount the Allies intended to exact be de-
cided upon immediately and be stipulated in the
treaty, but the Allies would have had to determine
the proportion of indemnity each country was to
receive. This could not have been done during
the Peace Conference, which had already too many
friction-breathing problems on its hands to risk
another. It involved the filing of claims of all the
victors. With the fluctuation of exchange and
the uncertainty of cost of labor, material, and
freight, those who suffered damages could not
even approximate the sum necessary to make
good their losses. The French advanced a power-
ful argument against the American suggestion
of a fixed indemnity when they said that, since
all admitted the liability of Germany to be
far more than could be collected from her, it
would be wise to wait a year or two to see how
hard hit Germany was and how the world would
recover from the economic consequences of the
war, before deciding how much money could be
collected. Mr. Lloyd George supported the
French contention. Having recently won a Gen-
eral Election on the promise to make Germany pay
all the expenses of the war, he did not dare to re-

548

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

turn from Paris with a treaty containing a fixed
sum for reparations.

Just as I have tried to show, in discussing the
internal affairs of Germany since 191 8, that the
Government could probably have done no more
than it has done in the matter of reparations, it
is possible on the other side to show how the
French Government has been compelled by pub-
lic opinion to keep hounding Germany for money.
The admission of a fixed indemnity in the treaty
was not necessarily planned by the French to give
them an indefinite strangle-hold upon Germany.
At the time they may not have realized that the
stipulation concerning the trial of war criminals,
which Germany could not fulfil, and the disarma-
ment clauses, which gave unlimited opportunity
for quibble and dispute, together with the unpaid
bills for reparations, would furnish a legal ex-
cuse for retaining the Rhine provinces and a tech-
nical ground for the further invasion of Germany.
The weapons were at hand. Public opinion
clamored for reparations. Briand was thrown
out of power to make way for the more energetic
Poincare. Ought we not to give due weight to
the popular outcry in France for reparations as a
powerful factor forcing or tempting the French
Government into its present policy?

Great Britain and the United States have no
budget deficits to face. We explain this by our

549

EUROPE SINCE 1918

willingness to tax ourselves and by drastic reduc-
tion of military and naval expenses. "An ad-
mirable example the British set us, and we are fol-
lowing it," said a treasury official to me in Wash-
ington. "And an admirable example the British
have set the other Allies in funding their debt to
us. Now, if the French would tax themselves, if
they would pay their debts, and if they would
put their army back on a peace footing, they
would n't be in such a hole." The same evening
I read in Washington's most influential newspa-
per, "If the French stop bothering the world about
a debt they will never collect, and realize that
prosperity comes from working, as we Americans
do, we shall have peace."

Although it has been impressed upon them over
and over again, British and Americans do not
seem to understand that northern and northeast-
ern France were industrial and mining regions,
from which France derived most of her wealth;
that these regions were ruined by fighting over
them and by the German occupation; and that
France still suffers not only from the loss of their
normal revenue but also from the necessity of in-
corporating in the national budget enormous sums
for reconstruction. Up to the end of 1922 the
French Government had advanced from the
Treasury, or guaranteed in principal and interest
on bonds floated, the huge sum of 85,000,000,000
francs for reconstruction.

55o

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

Neither the British nor we face this unique
problem. Yet, when we speak of the French
taxing themselves and cutting down expenses to
avoid budget deficits, we give smugly the illus-
tration of ourselves and how nobly we are solv-
ing financial problems, as if there were a sim-
ilarity between our situation and that of France.
We can get along without the German indemnity
because the Germans did not kill millions of us
and cripple our industries in Pittsburg and Chi-
cago. We can tax ourselves and not break under
the load, although we groan because the war,
taken for its entire period, made us wealthy. The
British were hard hit, but, as Mr. Austen Cham-
berlain complacently explained to the House of
Commons, the map of the world showed why the
British Empire need not worry about meeting its
obligations.

Economists agree on two points : that Germany
cannot pay what is demanded of her, and what
she was compelled to agree to pay by the May
ultimatum of 1921 ; and that the plan of making
Germany pay according to her prosperity (that
is, the tax on exports) will be worked out only if
the creditors of Germany take over the governing
of the country.

The first point is not hard to understand.
Payments abroad are made by favorable trade-
balances. Gold marks are to be found by selling
goods. How many gold marks Germany could

55i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

pay into the coffers of other countries would de-
pend upon her surplus over what she had to pay
for imported raw materials and food-stuffs.
Consequently Germany's good faith alone was
not sufficient to enable her to live up to the ob-
ligations she assumed. Faced with an impossible
financial task, she had to default.

The second point is more subtle. If we had no
internal revenue inspectors, and no laws to com-
pel individual men and corporations to show their
books for inspection, American national honesty
would not stand the strain put upon it. In
France, on the same day the Ruhr invasion was
approved on the ground of Germany's bad faith
and voluntary default, the reporter of the budget
declared that the Government had failed to ob-
tain income tax returns on 85 per cent of the
earnings of the year 1922 ! To get the sixty mil-
lion inhabitants of the German Empire working
for a generation to pay their conquerors sums the
amount of which depended upon their prosperity
would require rigid control of public and private
budgets down from Berlin to the smallest com-
mune and corporation. For if we did not govern
the Germans and tell them what they should and
should not put into their budget for expenses, in
a very short time we should find that they had no
surplus. Operating expenses and "indispensable"
public works would take all the money the Gov-
ernment could raise in taxes. Private enterprises

552

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

know how to find ways of spending money and
improving their plants up to the point where
nothing is left beyond the bare margin necessary
for cost of production to meet competition.

The British have well grasped these two points.
Not needing the indemnities as the French need
them, not having that internal and political eco-
nomic problem to face, the British have come to
feel that reparations are not, after all, of prime
importance. Insisting upon them, and furnish-
ing practical means for their collection, would in-
volve unwelcome German competition in world
markets and the maintenance of a standing army
in Germany. The game would not be worth the
candle. And it meant more than indemnities for
British prosperity to have Germany restored rap-
idly to economic health. The tone of the British
press is unmistakable: Germany must pay, of
course, but do not count upon our -help in making
her pay, and, above all, we must not pay for her !
If American public opinion, now at ease because
we are outside the European muddle, had any
conception of what helping to collect the indemnity
meant, our reactions would be the same as those
of the British.

France and Belgium have used force ostensibly
to collect indemnities. As far as the French and
Belgian people are concerned, whatever may be
the ulterior motives of their governments, the
armies are considered in the double role of col-

553

EUROPE SINCE 1918

lectors and defenders. They cost a lot; but the
people ask themselves: What else can we do?
We have no right to ask France to sheathe her
sword until we are prepared to offer a practicable
alternative to the compulsory collection of the in-
demnity. Since we know that Germany cannot
pay without injury to British and American com-
mercial interests and without involving Great
Britain and the United States in intervention in
the affairs of Germany, it is our duty to give
some constructive help to France in her financial
impasse. To denounce Germany is futile. To
scold France is shameful.

If the Germans have proved that they are in
earnest in carrying out the program of repara-
tions payments they propose in order to get France
out of the Ruhr, ought not the French to put their
army immediately on a peace footing, cut down
expenses, get back to work? We point to our
own sensible example. Throughout the English-
speaking world the minds of the people have been
concentrated for several years now on the "re-
turn to normalcy." We are suspicious of milita-
rism, and our determination not to encourage
France or any other nation in keeping things
stirred up has much to do with our attitude to-
ward interallied debts.

But here, as in the indemnity question, we have
considered the situation in terms of ourselves.
We are not worried about Germany, because we

554

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

have nothing to fear from Germany. Her navy
is sunk, and we have taken measures to prevent its
recreation, especially in the matter of submarines
and naval aircraft. We feel that Germany's
merchant marine is crippled for a long time, and
that the lessons of the war will enable us to pre-
vent a revival of German political and economic
propaganda outside Europe. As a result of the
war we have attained the things men fight for,
security and prosperity. If we still felt insecure
or if we believed that Germany was still in a posi-
tion to threaten our prosperity, our attitude to-
ward Germany would be different. Until we
were the victors, no matter what the cost, we
could never have been persuaded to lay down our
arms. Putting ourselves in place of France,
then, can we honestly argue that France should
sheathe her sword? Or that she could afford to
sheathe her sword ?

There is a military party in France, of course,
as there is in all countries ; and one finds Bourbon
and Prussian types of mind in high places. But
in a country ruled as France is ruled, militarists,
jingoes, and imperialists are able to shape policies
only in so far as the great mass of the electorate
find^ itself in fundamental agreement with their
fears and hopes. As long as French public opin-
ion fears Germany, plans for reducing Germany
to impotence will be listened to. As long as
French public opinion believes that it is possible

555

EUROPE SINCE 1918

to make the Germans contribute an important
part to France's yearly budget, there will be
no irresistible sentiment against keeping under
arms enough soldiers to force Germany to pay.

It is a mistake to think that the French are
blind to fact and logic because of their hatred
and fear of the Germans. One does not know
French character who says that the French are
trying to kill the goose and still hope for the
golden egg. The French think things out, and
they do not deceive themselves as we do. They
know that they run the risk of killing the goose
in trying to get the golden egg, but they need the
egg so badly that they are willing to take the
risk. And, after all, it is not a risk; for they
think that it would be as advantageous to them
to kill the goose as to have the egg.

If one could persuade the French to forget their
history from 1870 to 1918, to believe that their
industries and mines put them in a position to
compete on equal terms with Germany in world
markets, that budget deficits did not need to be
met, that the Lorraine frontier was as good a de-
fense as the English Channel or the Atlantic
Ocean, and that a nation of fewer than forty mil-
lions could raise as strong an army by a levee en
masse as a nation of over sixty millions, we should
find them as "reasonable" as ourselves. By be-
ing "reasonable" we mean trusting Providence
that everything will work out well in the end.

556

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

If only the French were "reasonable" ! Sur-
rounded by a plethora of this world's goods, we
see no reasons for the fear of the Frenchmen who
wonder how they are going to make both ends
meet. All they have to do is to get back to work !
Safe from attack in our Anglo-American geo-
graphical isolation, we are impatient with the
French for keeping their army mobilized, for at-
tempting to make Poland a strong ally to replace
Russia, for raising African armies to fill the gaps
caused by the hecatomb of the nation's youth, and
for drawing the claws of a beast whose attack
would be fatal were he given another chance.

We tell France that the peace of the world can-
not be definitely disturbed for the sake of satis-
fying the extreme demands of one nation. We
express our belief that France's apprehensions
are exaggerated. We warn the French that in-
determinate detention of the Rhine provinces will
create a new Alsace-Lorraine and lead to another
Avar. We repudiate the thesis of French na-
tionalists, that the only safe frontier for their
country is the Rhine. We wonder why there are
no statesmen and publicists in France to oppose
the propaganda of militarists, imperialists, and
extremists.

Such statesmen do exist. Briand, Painleve,
and Caillaux see France's future in peaceful co-
operation with Germany. With rare exceptions
French publicists are agreed that a Napoleonic

557

EUROPE SINCE 1918

epopee cannot be repeated without ending in a
disaster greater than that of a century ago. The
French are sick of war, and the internal reaction
to the Ruhr occupation shows that they are not
in the mood to be led into military ventures. But
they do not purpose to let pass the unique oppor-
tunity of assuring their safety by their own ef-
forts, seeing that they have been deserted by their
comrades in arms.

In coping with this state of mind, British and
American words must no longer be contradicted
by British and American deeds. To meet the
French argument of the Rhine as a strategic
frontier, Great Britain and the United States
signed a supplementary treaty on the day the
Treaty of Versailles was signed, promising to aid
France in case of a new German aggression.
This treaty was not ratified. London and Wash-
ington alike, while assuring Paris that the thought
of a new German aggression was absurd, were
unwilling to commit themselves to aid France
automatically in case of a German attack. Since
we acted thus, had we the right to remonstrate
with France when she took the steps that she
thought were necessary to protect herself ? If we
were as sure ourselves as we tried to make France
sure that Germany would not attack again, why
did we not give France the guaranty? It would
have cost us nothing, and, since we were sure
that Germany was going to be good, it would not

558

THE UNSHEATHED SWORD

have involved us. The French are more logical,
more reasonable, than we are. They realize that
we never believed what we said about Germany's
intentions in the future, else we should have given
the guarantee.

Before France and Belgium entered the Ruhr
there were already signs of restlessness in Great
Britain, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy
over the prolonged trade losses due to the failure
to settle the reparations question. As revealed
in speeches by Sir Eric Geddes and others who
had always been friendly to France, a feeling has
been growing that the unsheathed sword of France
is preventing the restoration of peace and the
economic rehabilitation of the whole world.
However much we may sympathize with the
provocation that finally made France enter the
Ruhr, who does not believe that playing a lone
hand against Germany and invoking the argu-
ment of superior force, if persisted in, will bring
terrible retribution upon France? The military
advantage is only temporary. Vital statistics of
the two countries point to the inevitable superior-
ity of Germany in the not distant future no mat-
ter what measures, desperate and far-reaching,
France may have taken in 1923.

Our attitude of constant criticism and advice,
while carefully keeping ourselves free from as-
suming obligations, is as untenable in the Ruhr
crisis as it was in the Near Eastern crisis. In

559

EUROPE SINCE 1918

view of the fact that we failed to approve Wilson's
promise to guarantee France, the least we can do
is not to advise and remonstrate when France
takes the measures that she thinks are necessary
to protect herself. On the other hand, those who
encourage France to use her sword are rendering
her a worse service than those who cavil at her,
unless they can honestly assure France of our sup-
port. For her own sake, for the sake of peace,
and for the well-being of the world, France ought
to sheathe her sword. But the honorable and the
practicable way to get her to do this is to offer her
our sword in case another 1914 arrives.

560

CHAPTER XXVIII

FRANCE AND BELGIUM IN THE
RUHR

IN tracing the question of reparations from
Germany through three years of continu-
ation conferences, we have seen how France
and Great Britain were unable to formulate and
adopt any policy that would afford a practicable
solution. When the time came to fix the total
sum, as provided for in the treaty, Great Britain
yielded to the insistence of France and allowed
a sum to be named which economists with one
accord declared to be absurd. Under threat of
occupation of the Ruhr Valley, the German
Government accepted the Allied ultimatum. It
was evident that neither France nor Great Brit-
ain expected Germany would or could pay the bill
presented in May, 1921. But the motives for
assessing Germany far beyond her capacity were
different.

The British Government believed that there
were sources of wealth that could be tapped for
reparations, if only sufficient pressure were
brought to bear. Germany was an industrial
nation, like Great Britain, and her statesmen and

56i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

captains of industry knew that rehabilitation in
world markets depended upon doing the right
thing in the way of reparations. The British
contended that the bill should be cut down if Ger-
many made a decent effort to meet her creditors
half-way, and that if a bit of bribing accompa-
nied the bullying the question could be settled to
the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The
British were eager to see an end to the upset con-
dition of Europe, which retarded seriously the
recovery of trade upon which they were depend-
ent. The economic aspect of the reparations
question was paramount, if British interests were
to be protected; and Bonar Law was no more
ready to ignore the economic considerations than
Lloyd George had been.

To the French the recovery of reparations from
Germany had been a political question from the
time the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The
guarantees for the execution of the treaty pro-
vided by the Rhineland occupation were deemed
insufficient. The Cologne area, south of the
Ruhr, was to be evacuated in 1924, the Coblenz
area in 1929, and the last troops withdrawn from
the Mainz area in 1934. If this progressive
evacuation were allowed to take place, where
would France stand after fifteen years? Econ-
omists, financial experts, and bankers might argue
convincingly about the best plan for getting rep-

562

IN THE RUHR

arations from Germany. France could not af-
ford to agree to any practical program for repara-
tions. For if she did, and Germany paid up,
the Rhine frontier and the sword kept pointed
at the heart of industrial Germany would no
longer be possible. Rid of her enemies, Germany
would swiftly prepare a war of revenge. Poin-
care had explained the determination of France
to take extreme measures on the ground that
without large sums from Germany, immediately
paid, France would be unable to avoid a financial
crash. But the money really mattered little.
The prime consideration was to make France
secure by rendering Germany impotent. The
Bonar Law proposals afforded Germany an op-
portunity to break loose from the strangle-hold
of France. To prevent this French public opin-
ion was behind Poincare in risking the disrup-
tion of the Entente.

After the failure of the Paris Conference,
which terminated abruptly on January 4, 1923,
the French press declared that France and Bel-
gium intended to force Germany to pay the sums
stipulated in the May, 1921, schedule, but that
the measures adopted would be purely economic.
On January 9, Poincare told the Chamber of
Deputies that the Allied Governments (with the
exception of the British) had decided to send
engineers and experts into the Ruhr, and that

563

EUROPE SINCE 1918

there was no thought of extending the French
military occupation beyond the actual positions
already held in the Rhineland nor of the per-
manent occupation of the Ruhr. A limited num-
ber of French and Belgian troops would form
a body-guard for the new Ruhr Commission.
The plan was to supervise the distribution of
coal and coke, and to have sent to France and Bel-
gium and Italy sufficient to pay the reparation
amounts in default and for the current year.
The great industrialists and the German people,
dependent upon Ruhr coal, would hasten to com-
ply with the orders of the Reparations Commis-
sion. It would soon be seen that the Germans
had been bluffing. As for the inhabitants of the
Ruhr, no difficulties were anticipated. In fact,
they were ill disposed toward the capitalists and
the Berlin Government. Under French control
they would be well paid and would have better
and more abundant food.

The French soon discovered that they had as
completely misjudged the reaction of the Germans
to the Ruhr invasion as the Germans had mis-
judged the reaction of the Belgians in 1914. In
the twentieth century national feeling still tran-
scends class feeling ; and men do not live by bread
alone. Force of any kind is resented by the com-
mon people, but most hateful is the force of the
foreigner. Was it strange to expect that the

564

IN THE RUHR

Germans of the Ruhr would act differently from
the Belgians and French in Northern France?
Speaking at Peronne in the last year of the war,
Clemenceau made a statement that I have never
forgotten: "Partout il y a des ruines, mais les
hommes, eux, ne sont pas en ruines, et, de meme
que les Frangais ont etonne le monde dans la
guerre, ils l'etonneront encore dans la paix." 1
One cannot draw a boundary-line and say that
the common people on one side of the line are men,
with noble sentiments, and on the other side ani-
mals, with no sentiments at all. There may be
a difference, through culture, in the educated
classes of different nations; but, given the same
degree of civilization, human nature is pretty
much the same. When the French entered the
Ruhr they found that the Germans were loyal to
their country, and acted as they had acted, when
the tables were turned. This upset the calcula-
tions of Paris and Brussels, and confronted the
two Governments with the problem of break-
ing down the passive resistance of millions of
people.

On January 9 the Reparations Commission de-
clared Germany in wilful default in 1922 coal
deliveries by three votes to one. Sir John Brad-
bury cast the minority vote. The American ob-

1 "Everywhere there are ruins, but as for men, they are not
in ruins, and, in the same fashion as the French have astonished
the world in war. they will astonish it again in peace.

565

EUROPE SINCE 1918

server, Roland W. Boyden, said that it would be
easy for him to remain silent, but that he wanted
to record his personal opinion. Germany, ac-
cording to Mr. Boyden, had made "a very con-
siderable effort in a very difficult matter and had
attained a very large measure of success." If
he were making a report he would go further than
simply to explain his reasons for believing Ger-
many less culpable than she appeared in the mat-
ter of the particular defaults in question, and
would explain that the conditions imposed by the
Treaty of Versailles had been demonstrated by
experience to be impossible. Moreover, he be-
lieved that that impossibility had affected not only
Germany's financial situation and her financial ob-
ligations to the Allies, but that "the continuation
of these conditions had already resulted in great
loss of money to the Allies and would result in
still further loss so long as they were maintained.

The British and American point of view was
not heeded. On January 10 the French and Bel-
gian Governments, in a note to the German Gov-
ernment, announced their intention to "despatch
to the Ruhr a mission of control composed of en-
gineers and having the necessary power to super-
vise the acts of the Kohlensyndicat and to as-
sure by virtue of orders given by its President
either to the latter syndicate or to the German
transport service strict application of the sched-

566

IN THE RUHR

ules fixed by the Reparations Commission and
take all necessary measures for the payment of
reparations." The next day Germany protested
to all the powers that had signed the Treaty of
Versailles "against the oppression applied toward
Germany in contradiction to the treaty and inter-
national law. The German Government does not
intend to meet violence with violence nor to reply
to the breach of the treaty with a withdrawal
from the treaty." On the same day President
Ebert issued a manifesto, exhorting the inhabit-
ants of the Ruhr Valley to remain calm, and de-
claring that "the execution of the peace treaty
becomes an absolute impossibility, and at the
same time the living conditions of the suffering
German Nation are disorganized."

The French and Belgian troops marched into
the Ruhr on January ij. Their first objective
was Essen, but in a few days the occupation was
extended to the other centers of Westphalian
coal production. The German authorities and
population did not resist, and the local police co-
operated with the invaders in maintaining order,
But that was as far as cooperation went. The
Kohlensyndicat had already transferred all its
records to Hamburg. The German Government
ordered the operators not to deliver coal to the
French and Belgian authorities even though it
were paid for. The mine-owners, at a meeting

567

EUROPE SINCE 1918

called by the French authorities on January 15,
refused to obey General Degoutte's order to con-
tinue deliveries, on the ground that they had to
obey the order of their own Government. It
was suggested that negotiation for coal de-
liveries should be carried on between Paris and
Berlin. Thereupon the six largest coal producers
were arrested and sent to Mainz for trial by court
martial. The miners employed by the arrested
men promptly went on strike. Wherever French
soldiers appeared in mines or factories the work-
ers quit immediately. There were no exceptions.
The solidarity of the workers with their employ-
ers and the Berlin Government amazed and baf-
fled the French and Belgians. Threats and ar-
rests had no effect.

When the invaders tried to move the coal and
coke already mined, the German Government is-
sued orders to railroad and Rhine navigation of-
ficials and employees to transport no reparation
coal. This measure completely tied up Ruhr
traffic, blocked the Rhine ports with barges, and
necessitated the militarization of the intricate sys-
tem of railways. But the French and Belgian
Governments did not have the one hundred and
twenty thousand trained railwaymen and canal-
boat and tug hands to grapple with the situation.
The mine-owners paid their striking workmen,
and full pay was sent from Berlin to the rail-

568

IN THE RUHR

waymen. Where the French succeeded in mov-
ing trains and barges, sabotage began. Bridges
and locks were dynamited, signal-stations and
switches tampered with, and vital parts of ma-
chinery removed from locomotives and tug-boats.
Efforts, partly successful at first, were made to
run locomotives and rolling-stock into unoccu-
pied Germany. The local authorities refused
point-blank to cooperate with the French and Bel-
gians, and this movement spread throughout the
Rhineland, except in the British zone. (The
Americans had withdrawn from Coblenz within
a fortnight after the Ruhr occupation.) Hotel-
and restaurant-keepers joined with shopkeepers
in boycotting the invading troops.

French retaliation took the form of fining, im-
prisoning, and deporting Government officials,
industrialists, and superintendents and chief en-
gineers of the mines ; expelling wholesale customs
and railway employees and their families; con-
fiscating state properties in the Rhineland and
Ruhr; seizing money in transit to branches of
the Reichsbank and found in municipal treasuries
and post-office and railway-station tills; requi-
sitioning hotels and restaurants; closing shops;
seizing custom-houses; and putting a cordon
around the invaded territories. The French
military authorities announced that they would
issue export licenses and collect the taxes. The

569

EUROPE SINCE 1918

German Government forbade manufacturers and
operators to apply for these licenses. During the
winter and spring business came gradually to a
standstill.

In the first four months of the Ruhr occupa-
tion France and Belgium received less coal and
coke than they would have got in a fortnight
of normal deliveries. The cost of the occupa-
tion was appalling and required the maintenance
of a military establishment that grew by leaps
and bounds to six times the figure originally
planned for. French and Belgian francs fell 25
per cent, while German marks depreciated to one-
two thousandth of par and reached almost the
vanishing point on foreign exchanges. There
was remarkably little bloodshed, and not as great
hardship to the Ruhr inhabitants as one would
have supposed. But the gulf of hatred separat-
ing the peoples was greatly widened, and the Ger-
mans seemed to have recovered to a certain extent
from their complete abasement of the years suc-
ceeding the great defeat. The recovery was of a
dangerous kind, however, as it tended to play into
the hands of the reactionaries. The Ruhr work-
men who never had any too much love for their
employers made a hero of Thyssen, and especially
of Krupp von Bohlen, who was sentenced by a
regimental court martial to fifteen years' impris-
onment for supposed complicity in an attack on

57o

IN THE RUHR

French soldiers at the Krupp works in April, in
which no French were hurt but thirteen Germans
were killed and many wounded.

The extension of the French occupation cut off
the British in the Cologne area from contact with
unoccupied Germany and led to an insistent de-
mand in the British press for the withdrawal of
the Army of Occupation, following the American
example. Critics of the Bonar Law Government
declared that Great Britain was being unneces-
sarily humiliated on the Rhine. Had it not been
for commercial interests involved, such a com-
plaint would have received little attention. It is
a quality of British officials to be fair-minded;
and, while they did not relish the position they
were in, the military and civil authorities at Co-
logne realized that the location of the Ruhr Val-
ley made it necessary for the French to extend
their lines around the British zone. The opposi-
tion of British commercial interests and of
Liberal and Labor leaders in Parliament was
far more serious. In the first three months of
1923 the Ruhr occupation caused serious losses
to British firms, which were scarcely offset by
the German orders for Welsh coal and the con-
sequent profit to the shipping trade. It was real-
ized that Germany could not find the credits to
continue buying in British markets. The two
war premiers, Asquith and Lloyd George, de-

57i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

clared in Parliament that four months of the
Ruhr experiment were sufficient to show the dis-
aster of the undertaking, not only to Germany
and France, but to the entire world. They in-
sisted on British intervention. Lord Robert
Cecil proposed that the Government invite the
French Government to bring the question before
the League of Nations.

The Poincare Cabinet was disappointed in the
failure of Italy to back the Ruhr policy more vig-
orously, and was alarmed over the growing oppo-
sition in Belgian labor and shipping circles. Pro-
tests had come in from Sweden, Holland, and
Switzerland. The two latter countries declared
that their treaty rights on the Rhine had been in-
fringed upon, and that their industries had suf-
fered from the failure to get Ruhr coal. Most
serious of all was the split in the great steel or-
ganization in France, which had been support-
ing the Poincare Government, if not actually in-
spiring it. The Schneiders, the largest single
firm in France, which owned Le Creusot, with-
drew from the Societe des Forges de France in
April as a protest against the policy of the Wen-
del and other groups, who believed that if France
stuck it out Germany would surrender uncondi-
tionally. The Schneiders did not relish the idea
of Ruhr products competing in French markets.

In every public utterance during the winter and

572

IN THE RUHR

spring of 1923 Poincare made it clear that France
and Belgium were at one in their intention to
stay in the Ruhr until Germany paid the schedule
of reparations fixed in May, 192 1. He said,
moreover, that France would not treat with Ger-
many or discuss any conditions until the German
Government abandoned the policy of passive re-
sistance in the Ruhr. This meant that Germany
could settle the reparations issue only by abandon-
ing the sole weapon she had and thereby consent-
ing to France's indefinite occupation of the heart
of industrial Germany.

Despite this uncompromising attitude, Lord
Curzon urged Germany to make a direct offer to
France. He stated what all the world knew, in-
cluding the Germans, that if the demands of the
victors had been impracticable, the offers of Ger-
many had failed equally to take into account the
facts of the situation. Before the Treaty of Ver-
sailles was imposed the German delegation had
offered to pay 100,000,000,000 gold marks, but
the offer was coupled with unacceptable condi-
tions, retention of Upper Silesia, a League man-
date to Germany for her former colonies, and
other concessions that the victors could hardly be
expected to accept. In 1921, when the time came
to fix the total amount, Germany offered 50,000,-
000,000 gold marks, still with the stipulation con-
cerning Upper Silesia. In both instances there

573

EUROPE SINCE 1918

was a wide discrepancy between the Allied and
German estimates as to the value of German pay-
ments since the war.

Following the British suggestion, the Cuno
Cabinet sent a note to the Entente Powers and the
United States on May 5 proposing that the obli-
gation of Germany as to payments in cash and
in kind under the Treaty of Versailles be fixed
at 30,000,000,000 gold marks, of which by a bond-
issue at normal rates on the international money-
market, 20,000,000,000 gold marks were to be
raised before July 1, 1927, 5,000,000,000 before
July 1, 1929, and 5,000,000,000 before July 1,
1 93 1. As an alternative Germany was willing
to leave the whole reparations question to an in-
ternational commission, as had been suggested
by the American secretary of state. Germany
would also agree to submit to international arbi-
tration all conflicts of any kind between herself
and France. However, Chancellor Cuno de-
clared that Germany would continue her passive
resistance until the French evacuated the areas
"occupied in excess of the stipulations of the
Treaty of Versailles."

Before the German note was received the
French press had declared that it would be re-
jected. It was felt that France could not afford
to go back on her previous statement of policy,
i. e., that the German Government rescind all the

574

IN THE RUHR

orders that had been given for passive resistance
in the Ruhr before negotiations were begun. In
other words, France, holding what she considered
to be the trump card, demanded unconditional
surrender on the part of Germany. Quite logi-
cally the Paris journals pointed out that the Poin-
care Cabinet could not remain in power if the
Ruhr expedition were confessed to be a failure.
France and Belgium simply had to continue to
affirm that the occupation of the Ruhr was legal
and that German resistance was an infraction of
the treaty. On the other hand, it was equally
true that the Cuno Government would be over-
thrown if it surrendered unconditionally.

A strenuous effort was made by Bonar Law
and Lord Curzon, who were beginning to feel the
pressure of public opinion in Great Britain, to
enter into conversation with Paris, Brussels, and
Rome, and to see if the Entente Powers could not
be induced to formulate a joint response to the
German offer. Although it was intimated that
Great Britain was willing to join in rejecting the
Cuno note on the ground of its inadequacy, the
French and Belgian Cabinets decided to reply im-
mediately and to reject the German offer on their
own responsibility. This was done. On May 8
the French and Belgian replies were published in
Berlin. The Germans realized that there was no
hope of inducing France to release her hold on the

575

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Ruhr. Not only was the German offer spurned
but the Cuno Cabinet was informed that France
and Belgium did not propose to release their
tangible guarantees until the sums assessed
against Germany by the Reparations Commission
were paid in full. The French argued that at
the last minute Germany would submit to France
in order to avoid bankruptcy and internal chaos.
France and Belgium made it clear that they were
willing to take the risk of this if Germany did not
submit, and that as the conflict was a matter be-
tween Germany and the powers occupying the
Ruhr, London and Rome would not have to reply
to the German note.

Neither Bonar Law nor Mussolini, however,
felt that it would be good policy to ignore the
German offer. Had not France and Belgium
been showing a tendency, which had to be checked,
to regard reparations from Germany as a mat-
ter interesting themselves exclusively? the British
and Italian replies both pronounced the offer as
"far from corresponding, either in form or in sub-
stance, to what might reasonably have been ex-
pected," as Lord Curzon put it. The British an-
swer called attention to the fact that the British
program, which was rejected by the other En-
tente Powers in January, had provided for nearly
double the amount Germany now offered. How
could Germany expect that 30,000,000,000 gold

576

IN THE RUHR

marKs would be accepted as a basis for discussion?
The Italian answer declared that Germany failed
to realize the importance of taking into account
Italian reparation claims. These had been re-
duced to one tenth of the amount to be recovered
from Germany on the ground that Italy was to
receive compensation from Austria and Hungary,
which had not been forthcoming. Both Gov-
ernments omitted any reference to the Ruhr, or to
Germany's alternate proposal to refer the repara-
tions question to an international tribunal.

One point in the Italian note was significant.
It laid stress on the intimate connection between
reparations and interallied war debts and insisted
that this problem be solved at the earliest possible
moment in order to "relieve the cost of reconstruc-
tion of the Italian invaded provinces." The
sacrifice demanded of Italy by Germany was there-
fore too great. The Paris "Temps," comment-
ing on the British and Italian notes, said that
Great Britain and Italy, by encouraging the Ger-
mans in their passive resistance, must be held
partly responsible for the inadequacy of the Ger-
man proposition. Great Britain, declared the
"Temps," had to realize that "the amount France
and Italy demand from Germany will necessarily
depend upon the sums claimed from them by Eng-
land." Virtually every other Paris newspaper
said in substance the same thing. By the middle

577

EUROPE SINCE 1918

of May it had become clear that if the deadlock
was to be broken, and a tolerable sum fixed for
German reparations, pressure in the Ruhr was
not going to accomplish that purpose. Hope lay
in a reconsideration of interallied indebtedness;
and a part of the sacrifices to be made would be
demanded of Great Britain and the United States.

At the beginning of May the French Govern-
ment announced that two thirds of the expenses
of the Ruhr occupation had already been recovered
from coal and coke shipped out and taxes levied,
and that it would not be long before the occupa-
tion "made expenses." This news was sent out
from Paris with an air of great satisfaction ; but
French newspapers revealed the fallacy of the
Government's statement. Making expenses was
not the first objective of the Ruhr occupation, and
in the announcements of policy and the many
notes of the winter and spring of 1923, had not
the French and Belgian Governments declared
that the Ruhr occupation would bring in repara-
tions? If one drew up a balance sheet it would
be necessary to put on the debit side the complete
cessation of deliveries in kind since the second
week of January and the resultant loss to the two
Governments. This was the only logical way of
computing the cost of the occupation. Not until
France and Belgium could meet all their military
expenses out of the Ruhr, force the resumption

578

IN THE RUHR

of the 1922 rate of payments and deliveries in
kind, and then see coming in a surplus over that
amount could the Ruhr occupation be fairly as-
serted to be profitable.

In judging the Franco-Belgian policy, other
considerations than that of financial return de-
mand attention. Has the occupation of the Ruhr
lessened Germany's capacity to pay reparations?
That is the business consideration. Has the
Franco-Belgian policy weakened the political situ-
ation of France and Belgium in post-bellum Eu-
rope? That is the political consideration. Has
the reign of martial law hurt France's prestige as
a chivalrous nation, scrupulous in her treatment
of the civilian population at her mercy, and rigor-
ous in her observance of international law and the
elementary principles of justice? That is the
moral consideration. The observer of European
financial markets and international political cur-
rents, and the reader of the most influential jour-
nals of all European countries, must give a reluc-
tant affirmative answer to all three of these
questions.

In one of the many conferences on reparations
the Japanese ambassador to Great Britain de-
clared, "Gentlemen, there is only one question
before us: 'How can we best make Germany
pay most?'" The Japanese ambassador was
talking common sense. But his point of view

579

EUROPE SINCE 1918

was as little heeded in the heated discussions as
had been the point of view of General Bliss sev-
eral years earlier, when he insisted that the armi-
stice with Germany was a military question and
should be so regarded. The statesmen in 191 8
had no intention of rendering Germany immedi-
ately and completely impotent ; for they wanted a
treaty in which terms could be incorporated, on
the excuse of Germany's power, that would serve
their political and economic interests. In the rep-
arations question what the statesmen feared most
was a final definite and workable solution pro-
posed by bankers and economic experts ; for they
intended to establish an indefinite protectorate
over Germany. There is no doubt that Germany's
capacity to pay has decreased steadily since June,
1919, and received a still more serious blow by the
rejection of the offer of the Cuno Government in
May, 1923, to submit the question to any tribunal
the Entente Powers might name, and agree to
abide by its verdict.

The frank annoyance of the British Govern-
ment at the "unnecessary precipitancy" of the
French reply to the Cuno offer reveals a seriously
disrupted Entente. In the House of Commons
and in the House of Lords the same statement was
made on May 8 :

It was the view of His Majesty's Government that
the best and most natural course of procedure would be

580

IN THE RUHR

to return to a concerted reply . . . the more so as the
German note was in response to a suggestion made pub-
licly and officially by the Foreign Minister of the British
Government and as the problem involved . . . was one in
which the Allied Powers, and not merely France and
Belgium alone, are deeply concerned.

The isolation of France from her old comrades
in arms, through whose aid alone she was put in
the position where she could coerce Germany, is
accompanied by dissatisfaction in Belgium, and
by a feeling of resentment and suspicion, as we
have already indicated, on the part of other Eu-
ropean countries. The prudent policy for a coun-
try with the birth-rate of France would seem to
be reconciliation with Germany and conciliation
with Russia. Whatever gain France may enjoy
from a temporary success of the Ruhr occupation
is bound to be offset by the feeling aroused in the
minds and hearts of the generation growing up in
Germany. Wise statesmenship ought to have
taken this fact into account.

The saddest result of the Ruhr occupation is
the flood of newspaper stories, cartoons, and edi-
torials in every European country, directed
against the abuse of military power in the rela-
tions of the army of occupation with the civilian
population of the Ruhr. An invading army in-
variably gets itself involved in difficulties, and
goes from one doubtful proceeding to another.

58i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

That is in the nature of the thing. Public opinion
hates abuses of military power and verdicts of
court martials, no matter how great the provoca-
tion or how just the cause of prosecution. The
moral indignation of the world was a powerful
factor against Germany during the World War;
and within the same decade as the Marne and
Verdun it is tragic to see in the most reputable
newspapers of Stockholm, Rotterdam, Copenha-
gen, Rome, and London, over the signature of
bishops, university professors, journalists, and
historians, stories like the following, which I have
taken from the London "Observer" of May 6,
1923.

Thousands of innocent persons lie in the gaols, closely
crowded together, six or ten in a single cell, often without
separation of the sexes — gray civil servants put in with
criminals, woman officials (e. g., five from the Wiesbaden
post office) with prostitutes; often punished by with-
drawal of food for days together and always under the
control of Moroccan warders. Many have waited for
months without examination, being left entirely ignorant
of the reason of their arrest ; others have been condemned
to years of captivity or forced labor . . . and all this in-
variably without preliminary trial, by administrative or-
der, for no crime but that of "criticizing" the administra-
tion, or at most of obeying the orders of the German
Government instead of those of French military author-
ities. ... It is thus that, among many other examples,
the Traffic Inspector Gottfried of Ludwigshafen was car-

582

IN THE RUHR

ried off to twenty years' captivity in the French colonial
mines.

Of course our minds go back to the days of the
World War when the Germans did things of this
kind, and we might argue that it is natural and
just for their civilian population to have a taste of
what their military authorities inflicted upon
French and Belgian civilians. But during the
war we flattered ourselves that we were better
than the Germans and would not have stooped, had
we been in their place, to make war upon the weak
and unarmed. It is more than a question of
ethics. It is a question of weakening the excellent
case we had against the Germans by dragging our-
selves down to their level. Right-minded men
the world over intensely abhorred the German
abuses of military power in Belgium and Northern
France. It is permitted therefore for warm
friends and admirers of France to question the
wisdom of a policy that lays the French army
open to charges of abuse of power, vandalism,
brutality, and unjust verdicts of courts martial.
No matter how great the provocation, the im-
pression is always bad.

In the summer of 1923 the French may assert
that the settlement of the Ruhr dispute is a matter
between France and Belgium on the one side and
Germany on the other. But clairvoyant French-
men do not indorse this attitude, which, if per-

583

EUROPE SINCE 1918

sisted in, spells ruin for France and Belgium in
the future. No greater calamity could fall upon
France and Germany alike than the adoption by
the rest of the world of the easy role of Pilate.
France is on top now; to-morrow Germany will
have her day. Is it no concern of the rest of the
world? The circumstances being as they are, is
not the victory of France, in this question, as
disastrous as her failure? Upon a fair and just
solution of the Franco-German conflict over rep-
arations, in which France shall be assured just
reparation for damages done during the war but
at the same time be not allowed to follow the
Bismarckian policy, which the present generation
of Frenchmen seems to approve, depends the
question of a durable peace or a new and more
horrible war than the last one.

CHAPTER XXIX

INTERALLIED DEBTS
OUR money lend and lose a friend" is an

adage that the former comrades in arms

have been ruefully recalling ever since
the stirring days of the World War, when they
were borrowing and spending with no thought
of the day of reckoning. We kept no books in
which were charged up to one another's ac-
count the expenditure in human lives. We
gave our own lives and our son's lives, and ex-
pected nothing in return. The appalling loss of
life and the human wreckage were cheerfully
accepted ; for that was traditionally the ex-
pected sacrifice of war. Each member of the
coalition contributed without stint, for service
on all the fronts, all the fighting men it could
muster; and if there was ever any haggling
about quotas, the public knew nothing about it.

But when it came to money and material wealth
there were no free-will offerings, no pooling of
resources. Although money and credits fur-
nished the sinews of war and were used as
weapons to crush the common enemy, books were

5S5

EUROPE SINCE 1918

kept down to the smallest outlay. The Allied
powers did not forget to charge up every item
against one another; and while the soldiers were
fighting on the fields of battle, the accountants
were buried in vouchers and ledgers, working
night and day to record the biggest expenditures
the world had ever seen. When the armistice
came, there were outstanding bills. It was taken
for granted that accounts would be settled. On
the books friends were to all intents and purposes
on the same footing as enemies. Whether it was
the individual in account with his own Govern-
ment, or one Government in account with another,
it was assumed that amounts owing would be paid
with interest.

All the warring nations had internal obliga-
tions to meet. In the period of reconstruction as
well as during the actual war years, successive
loans had been floated, partly by pyramiding, at
increasing rates of interest. In every country the
national debt had grown beyond belief. Most of
it was owed at home, but millions of people had
patriotically invested their own savings and re-
serve funds and the capital essential to their busi-
ness enterprises. Governments had to meet the
interest charges, and, because they needed to bor-
row still more money, their people had to be as-
sured that all that had been advanced would be
paid back. In many of the countries staggering

'586

INTERALLIED DEBTS

under the load of unprecedented internal obliga-
tions, budget deficits confronted the Governments,
and new loans had to be floated to keep abreast of
current expenses. And yet there were added bur-
dens, for reconstruction, for demobilization, and
for liabilities of all kinds, most important of which
were pensions and interest on war loans. As if
these seemingly insurmountable obstacles to bal-
ancing budgets were not enough, the vanquished
nations had reparations to pay, and the victors
owed stupendous sums to one another. With the
exception of the United States and the British
Empire, gold reserves were depleted, further
credit abroad was shut off, and paper money was
progressively issued, in defiance of economic laws,
until inflation drove down European exchanges to
the lowest levels in the record of international
finance.

In four years French money dropped to one-
third of par, Belgian between one-third and
one-fourth, Italian one-fourth, Czechoslovak one-
eighth, Jugoslav one-twelfth, and Rumania one-
fifteenth. Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish money
kept well above Rumanian. Poland, on the other
hand, shared with Russia, Austria, and (after the
invasion of the Ruhr) Germany the problem of
keeping the paper money from becoming alto-
gether valueless. Hungary and the Baltic Re-
publics (except Finland) gave up the struggle of

587

EUROPE SINCE 1918

supporting their money in international exchanges
in the early part of 1923.

For a time the English-speaking peoples looked
upon the decreasing values of Continental Euro-
pean moneys with indifference or amusement.
Trade with the Continent, which could not pay
pounds sterling or dollar prices, fell off and
threatened us with a crisis of over-production.
This was a danger to which we quickly adjusted
ourselves, with the consoling thought that the
business would have had to be done on credit any-
way. Who could afford to sell on credit to coun-
tries already virtually bankrupt and with a Con-
stantly falling currency? The English-speaking-
peoples had the rest of the world to trade with,
and it seemed that there was nothing to do but to
wait until some of the countries affected by chaotic
financial conditions became bankrupt and repudi-
ated their worthless paper money, as revolutionary
France had repudiated the assignats and the
American Southern States had seen their Con-
federate dollars become worthless. The more
stable European countries could in time con-
quer the problem of inflation and rebalance their
budgets.

Were it not for the two intimately related prob-
lems of reparations and interallied debts, Great
Britain and the United States would probably not

588

INTERALLIED DEBTS

have become involved in the political and financial
implications of the European financial situation.
But all these countries owed Great Britain and the
United States large sums, representing either ad-
vances made during the war or sums due on rep-
arations account. This being the case, it was
impossible to expect the Continental European
countries to settle their accounts with one another
until some agreement had been reached with Great
Britain and the United States in regard to the ac-
counts of all the Continental European countries
with the creditor nations. The problem of inter-
national debts was still further complicated by
two facts : that Great Britain owed nearly as much
to the United States as was owing to her from her
European debtors; and that the United States,
while demanding preferred settlement for her
bill against Germany for the expenses of the army
of occupation, had failed to ratify the Treaty of
Versailles and had made a separate peace with
Germany.

The American Government was unwilling to
accept the thesis set forth in the Balfour note of
August i, 1922, that Great Britain's debt to the
United States should be considered in connection
with the debts of Continental Europe to Great
Britain. It was unwilling, also, to defer the pay-
ment of the Rhine occupation bill until the general

589

EUROPE SINCE 1918

question of German reparations had been satisfac-
torily solved. Adopting the attitude that "busi-
ness is business," the American Government not
only concluded a refunding agreement with Great
Britain, independent of European financial prob-
lems, and sent a Treasury official to France to
press the claim for America's share in the German
payments for military occupation, but also an-
nounced its expectation that other debtors should
follow Great Britain's example.

Of the Continental European nations Finland
alone has arranged to repay her obligation to the
United States. The United States holds sufficient
German assets to cover reparations, and a Ger-
man-American commission met in Washington,
in March, 1923, to adjudicate the claims of Amer-
ican citizens against the German Government.
No progress has been made in the matter of
claims against other enemy countries. France,
Italy, and the smaller European countries, except
Finland, have made no move to pay the interest
and amortize the principal of the loans advanced
by the United States.

What has happened, however, as we have al-
ready seen, is that our European debtors have an-
nounced the policy of making reimbursement to
the United States dependent upon the collection of
reparations from Germany and the other van-
quished nations. The argument by which they

59o

INTERALLIED DEBTS

support this policy is easy to grasp. They say:
"We cannot pay the United States and Great Brit-
ain unless we receive the reparations granted us
by the treaties of the Paris settlement. If we mod-
ify or waive our claims, as embodied in the Paris
treaties, we must look to the United States and
Great Britain to cancel our debts to them." For
several years this has been the answer of the
French press to American and British criticism of
France's reparations policy (on May II, 1923, it
was stated officially in Mussolini's reply to the
German offer to settle reparations on the basis of
30,000,000,000 gold marks/)

American public opinion, while sympathetic to
France and Belgium in the Ruhr occupation, feels
that debts should be paid all around, and is un-
willing to accept as valid the contention of contin-
gent payments or to realize that our European
friends have the right to expect us to let up on
them if they let up on Germany. Europeans ask :
"Why should the conquerors pay, while the con-
quered go scot-free? Are we not the victims?
Were they not the aggressors ? It is incredible to
expect us to forgive our enemies when you are
unwilling to forgive your friends?" The Amer-
icans retort, "Why should we pay the German
reparations, for this is what your proposal
amounts to?"

59i

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The principal interallied debts are as follows:

1. France owes Great Britain and the

United States $7,000,000,000.

2. Italy owes Great Britain and the United

States 4,500,000,000.

3. Belgium owes Great Britain and the

United States 900,000,000.

4. Great Britain owes the United States 4,750,000,000.

5. Russia owes France 4,000,000,000.

6. Russia owes Great Britain and the United

States 500,000,000.

7. The smaller states owe Great Britain,

the United States, and France more

than 3,500,000,000.

According to the ratio finally decided at the
Spa Conference, France, Great Britain, and Italy
are to receive respectively 52, 26, and 10 per cent
of whatever reparations Germany finally pays,
while Belgium is a preferred creditor of Germany,
and Italy has a lien on the major part of Austrian
and Hungarian reparations.

The figures are only approximate, for they do
not take into account compounded interest ;^)and
there is some doubt as to the propriety of includ-
ing the Russian obligations to France, most of
which date from before the war and are owing
French nationals and not the French Government. )
Roughly speaking, the United States is the larg-
est creditor, with $11,000,000,000 owing her,

592

INTERALLIED DEBTS

while Great Britain follows a close second, with
$10,000,000,000 on her books against Continental
European countries. Great Britain stands to be
the heaviest loser ; for the payment of none of her
loans is assured, while more than 40 per cent of
the American advances is represented by the loan
to Great Britain, arrangements for the paying
of which with interest have already been con-
cluded.

When we consider the short time that the
United States was in the war, its cost was stag-
gering. And we must remember that the Unite'd
States lent no money out of surplus, but that her
ability to grant the huge credits to her associates
in the World War was due to the successive Lib-
erty loans and the Victory loan, which are inter-
nal obligations the interest and amortization
charges of which are being carried in our national
budget. On the other hand, the money did not ac-
tually leave the country, but was spent by the
borrowing Governments for goods and food-stuffs
manufactured and raised in the United States.
The repayment of Great Britain's debt does not
work great hardship either on the British or our-
selves; for Great Britain and her Dominions are
large holders of American securities and have ex-
tensive investments in Mexico and Central and
South America. The Continental European bel-
ligerents sold most of their North and South

593

EUROPE SINCE 1918

American securities during the war. \ The repay-
ment of $6,500,000,000 to the United States would
have to come largely through an excess of exports
over imports from the United States.1)

The transfer of surpluses of wealth from one
country to another is an economic problem of both
reparations and interallied debts that has not yet
been solved. In the midst of all our discussion
of the insistence upon the settlement of repara-

^ tions and interallied indebtedness, where is the
economist who has shown us how this can be
done without the willingness of French markets
to absorb German goods and American markets
to absorb European goods?

However little it may appeal to us on first sight
as a business proposition to cancel French and

jj Italian debts in return for the sweeping modifica-
tion by these two nations of indemnity demands

< upon Germany, we may yet come to see that such
a course would be not only a magnificent contri-
bution to world peace but also good business for
ourselves. Is it not the alternative to a low tariff
and dumping? Will it not lead to the economic
rehabilitation of Europe, to which reparations and
interallied debts are now the barriers? For our

4 1 Just how far French and German nationals have parted with
their American investments is an open question ; and many well
informed Americans dissent vigorously from the conventional
statement of New York banking circles, which, for lack of spe-
cific data to the contrary, I have been inclined to accept at its
face-value.

594

INTERALLIED DEBTS

farmers and manufacturers alike, is not the res-
toration of Europe's purchasing power a benefit
worth a sacrifice of loans that either are bad debts
or can be repaid only to our detriment? /

Interallied indebtedness has also its psychologi-
cal side. "Your money lend and lose a friend" is
a true saying. The attitude of the American
people on interallied indebtedness is a serious ob-
stacle to Franco-American and Italo-American
friendship. We cannot exact payment of the
sums owing us without creating dislike, antago-
nism, and resentment. This may be a sad fact,
but it is none the less true.

In conclusion, there are two points upon which
Americans have the right to insist, and it would
be foolish to cancel interallied indebtedness with-
out insisting upon them.

The material advantages the United States
gained from the World War were far less than
those gained by the other victorious participants.
Putting aside as hypothetical the argument that
Germany, had she won, would have attacked us
next ( for it is an argument that does not take into
proper consideration the importance of sea-
power), we can say to our European comrades in
arms, including Great Britain, that they ought to
take into account not only the intangible rewards
of victory, such as crippling a powerful adversary
and competitor, but also the spoils — reparations

595

EUROPE SINCE 1918

already made, in which we did not share; ship-
ping- ; territory annexed ; and the division of rich
German colonies and a portion of the Ottoman
Empire. It is idle to say that these are not worth
while and are liabilities rather than assets. If
they are of no value, what shall we think of British
and French statesmen who insisted on having
them and who have been willing to spend blood
and treasure, and to risk the friendships cemented
in the war, in order to possess and enjoy them ?

Even when the idea of reparations was enlarged
to cover pensions, the United States did not lay
claim to a share. This was in itself a generous
contribution to our European associates. Nor did
we ask for a sphere of influence in Turkey or a
share in the German colonies. Our attitude was
one of complete disinterestedness and of an un-
selfishness unparalleled in the history of peace-
making by victorious coalitions. If we are now
asked to make an additional contribution, should
we not insist first of all upon a .quid pro quo for
our money in the form of definite understanding
about the open door in Africa and Asia, especially
in the mandated territories ? Ought we not also
to insist upon the military and naval neutraliza-
tion of European possessions on the American
continent and reciprocity in trade agreements be-
tween all these possessions and the countries of
North, Central, and South America ?

596

INTERALLIED DEBTS

The second point is one on which we need light
badly. Just what are the holdings of citizens of
debtor nations and of debtor governments in the
United States and other parts of America? Our
debtors are pleading poverty and the impossibil-
ity of paying reasonable interest, much less of
amortizing, what they borrowed from us. Just
what truth is there in this plea, which has the
tacit indorsement of some of our largest banks?
Speaking at Toledo on October 16, 1922, Secretary
Hoover declared:

The settlement of international balances between
America and Europe contains factors that are in their
volume unique in international commerce. For instance,
the annual expenditure of American tourists abroad, the
remittances of emigrants in the United States to their
relatives, the growing volume of investment made by our
people in foreign countries, interest upon investments in
the United States of private citizens of our debtor coun-
tries, and other items of so-called invisible exhange com-
bine to furnish a large supply of our money to Europe
with which they in turn can make payments of interest on
debts or for the purchase of goods from us. In total to
the world these sums amounted to about $1,500,000,000
in the last fiscal year, which was, indeed, a year of de-
pression, and these are sums which with peace in the
world will grow constantly in the future. These sums
are largely expended directly or indirectly in our debtor
countries. . . . During that fiscal year the world had a
paying power to us in excess of goods bought from us
of about $750,000,000.

597

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Mr. Henry A. Forster, the New York lawyer,
has gathered interesting statistics from various
sources to prove that Great Britain, Germany,
and France receive from investments abroad,
many of them in the United States, incredibly
large annual interest. It may be, therefore, that
the United States is not the creditor nation — in the
actual sense of that word — that she is assumed
to be; and before we release any of our debtors
abroad (they are debtors to the holders of Ameri-
can Government securities, and not to our Govern-
ment out of Treasury surplus), it would be well
for us to find out what are the investment holdings
of these Governments and their citizens in se-
curities of every kind in the United States, on
which interest is being sent abroad. Then there
will be a clearer and fairer conception of the
merits of this question on both sides of the At-
lantic.

■

598

CHAPTER XXX

THE NEXT MOVES IN THE
INTERNATIONAL GAME

OUT of the Peace Conference and the welter
of policies that followed it students of in-
ternational affairs have learned one thing,
if nothing else: to distrust the efficacy of for-
mulas to improve relations among nations. De-
spite the sacrifices and the heroic deeds of count-
less millions of civilized human beings, despite the
educational propaganda of the war years, despite
the high ideals for the triumph of which we be-
lieved that we were fighting, there was a scramble
for spoils immediately the war was ended. The
Paris Peace Conference conclusively proved that
there had been no conversion of statesmen from
their faith in traditional foreign policies to the
widely heralded and much vaunted principles of
"self-determination," "rights of small nations,"
"making the world safe for democracy," "a du-
rable world peace," and "the league of nations."
No effort was made to repudiate the Prussian idea
that "might goes before right," and it was soon
evident that the war fought to liberate subject

599

r

EUROPE SINCE 1918

peoples had resulted in the destruction and ruin
of some of them and in bringing out in the rest of
them the bad traits we condemned the Germans
for showing.

The story of Europe since 19 18 gives us furi-
ously to think; for we have seen our statesmen
and leaders unable to abandon the traditional rules
of the diplomatic game in their efforts to solve
post-bellum problems and the great mass of intel-
ligent men and women unwilling to inform them-
selves about and think constructively upon ques-
tions affecting world peace. It was natural that
there should have been indulgence in prejudices
and passions during the war. Whether in a right-
eous cause or not, fighting implies the abandon-
ment of the inhibitions of civilized society and a
return of the law of the jungle. Violence and the
reasoning faculty cannot be used coordinately in
the settlement of disputes. The excuse for put-
ting our trust in force was that our opponents
would listen to no other argument, and that when
we had won we intended to restore the rule of
reason. Our methods and our aims were totally
different from those of our enemies, so we said,
and we were saving civilization while they were
trying to destroy it.

In fairness to our statesmen it must be recog-
nized that public opinion in all the victorious
countries called out for a victors' peace and that

600

THE NEXT MOVES

if the world now exhibits symptoms of social
disintegration and is for the time being on the
down grade, it is because the passions engendered
by the war did not die out and because hysterical
peoples forgot or disclaimed in the hour of victory
the goal that had made them capable of stupen-
dous sacrifices and effort during the war years.

The Entente Powers and the United States
are beginning to recognize that their failure to
agree upon a common policy in Europe and the
Near East is condemning them to forego the
advantages of their victory in the World War.
Protagonists and critics of the Paris peace set-
tlement are still poles apart. On one point, how-
ever, all must agree. The Treaty of Versailles,
and the other treaties modeled after it and de-
pendent upon it, have failed to bring peace to
Europe and the world. It is fruitless to talk
about the bad faith of Germany, the abstention
of the United States, the disconcertingly long lease
of life of Soviet Russia, the imperialism of Great
Britain, the militarism of France, and the un-
reasonableness of small states and subject nation-
alities ; for each of these factors, taken by itself,
is a result rather than a cause of the failure of
the treaties. If we content ourselves with call-
ing each other bad names and seeking to find in.
some one unruly national current or attitude the
source of our ills, the universal chaos will only

60 1

EUROPE SINCE 1918

increase. It would not be hard to build up a
convincing brief against the foreign policy fol-
lowed by every nation, friend and enemy, since
the armistice of November 11, 1918. But we
get nowhere unless we are able to show that the
present state of affairs is due, not to the errors of
statesmen dealing with specific problems, but to
fundamentally unsound and irrealizable concepts
in the general bases of the treaties.

Among the errors of the Paris settlement we
can point out : ( 1 ) creating a League of Nations
whose charter provides for the permanent he-
gemony of five nations, with widely divergent in-
terests; (2) reserving the advantages of the
treaties to a few nations but making all members
of the League responsible for their execution;
(3) treating the vanquished enemies as criminals
without right to counsel or appeal to an impartial
tribunal, but at the same time not providing jailers
to keep them in prison during the period of pun-
ishment; (4) denying the principle of reciprocity
in contractual obligations ; ( 5 ) declaring that the
treaties are based upon the policy of freeing peo-
ples from alien rule, but limiting the application
of the policy to a few especially favored peoples,
and violating it in other cases; (6) failing to
apply one weight and one measure in passing
upon the claims to reparations of peoples who had
suffered in the World War through aggression,

602

THE NEXT MOVES

invasion, and the violation of international law;
and (7) maintaining the old balance of power
theory.

When we analyze the treaty, and study the
course of the negotiations, we see that the first
six errors are the children, that is, the outgrowth,
of the seventh. It is possible to explain all the
treaties by keeping in mind that the dominating
idea of the Peace Conference was the recognition
of the transcendent rights of the powers that had
big armies and navies. The battle had been to
the strong; so likewise should be the spoils. A
new balance of power had to be created by virtue
of which the strong could remain permanently
strong by compounding their rivalries and by al-
lowing one another strategic frontiers and the
privilege of forming new international combina-
tions for the purpose of keeping weak the peo-
ples that had been conquered. The methods of
waging war and of gauging strength, however,
had radically changed during the nineteenth cen-
tury. No longer were man-power and geograph-
ical position decisive elements. Coal, iron, oil, and
access to food-stuffs and raw materials had be-
come vital factors in the power of nations.

Far from being discouraged by the alarming
condition of international relations five years
after the war, we should feel relieved that we
have been afforded a salutary demonstration of

603

EUROPE SINCE 1918

the futility of the Paris peace settlement at so
little cost. If our eyes are now opened to the
dangers of the international game, as it has been
played since 191 8, there is yet a chance to mend
our ways before irreparable damage is done.
Most of those who are writing on European poli-
tics are neither cynics nor pessimists, and they dc
not record the failure of these years with ghoulish
delight. In discussing the possible dangers ahead
they do not relish the role of Cassandra. The
purpose of writing is to show how policies, .ap-
proved in the beginning by public opinion, are
likely to work out. Is the game worth the candle ?
That is for the reader to decide.

The twofold mandate from voters to those who
represent them in matters of foreign policy is :
make us secure, and make us prosper. That is
why the struggle for the possession of coal, iron,
oil, and world markets, and not international co-
operation as embodied in the League of Nations
and the Permanent Court of International Jus-
tice, underlies the history of Europe since 1918,
and furnishes an appallingly sordid explanation
of the policies followed by European statesmen
in the Saar, the Ruhr, Upper Silesia, Eastern Ga-
licia, the Banat of Temesvar, the Donetz region of
Ukrainia, the Caucasus, northern Persia, and the
Mosul region of Turkey. If Germany and Russia
could be permanently deprived of the resources es-

604

THE NEXT MOVES

sential to war that abound in these disputed terri-
tories, their man-power would count for little.
They would be reduced to a state of vassalage,
and the strength of the nations possessing or con-
trolling these regions would be correspondingly
increased.

Under the spell of this idea France is trying to
reconstruct Europe, and she has been able to find
support for her policy among those to whom
German and Russian coal, iron, and oil have been
allotted, and to whom German and Russian sea-
ports and provinces have been given. In the
Near East France was willing to let Great Brit-
ain have a free hand in the Caucasus and Persia
and to sacrifice the right to Mosul recognized in
the Sykes-Picot agreement of 191 6. To Ruma-
nia were handed over Bessarabia and the iron
and coal in Temesvar. Germany's coal supplies
passed under Franco-Polish control, and the
French hope that Poland has become by the pos-
session of Upper Silesia and Eastern Galicia a
state strong enough to be a permanent barrier be-
tween Germany and Russia. As an additional
safeguard against the regrouping of the Teutonic
element in central Europe and its contact with
Hungary and Russia, the Little Entente was
formed.

For France the next move in the international
game is to settle the reparations question with

605

EUROPE SINCE 1918

Germany and to make peace with Russia in such
a way that Germany will lose control of her es-
sential resources for war making and will be cut
off permanently from the temptation of forming
with Russia an alliance to shake off the strangle-
hold of the victors in the World War upon these
two powers. France believes that Great Britain's
interests in Asia and her anxiety to prevent Ger-
many from making another effort to compete
with her for world markets and the carrying
trade will eventually induce the British to ac-
quiesce in the French scheme for a new European
balance of power directed against both Germany
and Russia.

The flaw in the French program is the failure to
realize that France's control of the Rhineland and
the Ruhr and the dependence of Poland upon her
give rise to the suspicion that her aim is the
military and economic domination of Europe.
The protestation or the fact of innocence of any
such plan makes no difference to those who fear it.
France has a great reservoir of African troops.
With control of German coal and with Poland
as a vassal she will be in a more advantageous
position to impose her will upon Europe than
Germany was in 1914, with Austria-Hungary as
a vassal. The control of the Ruhr mines and
factories will inevitably cause other, European

606

THE NEXT MOVES

states to combine with Great Britain against
France as they combined in the decade preceding
the World War against Germany.

Great Britain is in an unhappy frame of mind
over the political and economic situation of Eu-
rope. To get France out of the Ruhr and to re-
lease the hold of France on Germany, British
public opinion is prepared to forgive the French
debt— and the other interallied debts, for that
matter. It is more important for Great Britain
to-day than ever that no power dominate Conti-
nental Europe. The British are eager for the
return of normal economic conditions and the res-
toration of their European markets. Outside
Europe they have made many sacrifices, as in
Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, to get
rid of military burdens and financial outlay by
adopting an attitude of compromise toward de-
mands of native populations for self-government.
The imperialism of British foreign policy after
the World War was, as we have seen, very
quickly checked. British public opinion is alive
to the danger of disregarding the aspirations of
Asiatic and African peoples, and is prepared to go
to almost any length to keep together the empire
that has been centuries in the building. The
greatest difficulty ahead for Great Britain comes
from the insistent demand of Continental Euro-

607

EUROPE SINCE 1918

pean countries that the world's raw materials be
pooled and that equality of access to them be
granted by the great colonial power.

Italy's next move in the international game is
undoubtedly along the line of unhampered access
to raw materials in Asia, and Africa, and Aus-
tralia, and unrestricted emigration to the United
States and the British Dominions. It cannot be
too strongly emphasized that Italy stands in the
same relation to the outside world in which Ger-
many and Japan stand. The three great powers
have become industrial nations with a rapidly
growing population, and to exist and prosper they
must import raw materials and food-stuffs and
export manufactured goods. They need also an
outlet for surplus population and opportunities
for capital investment in countries where such in-
vestment helps their trade. There would have
been no World War had not Germany felt herself
deprived of "her place in the sun." Other na-
tions were ahead of her in preempting colonizing
areas and the regions upon which Europe could
draw for raw materials and rely for markets.
The war did not solve Germany's problem. It
was her own fault, we can assert, and leave it at
that. But how about Italy and Japan, our com-
rades in arms ? Their need of world-wide equal-
ity for trade and emigration are as great as Ger-

608

. THE NEXT MOVES

many's, and they have not forfeited considera-
tion of their claims, as Germany has done. On
the contrary, they have a greater claim to the
consideration of the more fortunate powers than
ihey had a few years ago.

In attempting to put into one volume the event-
ful story of Europe since 19 18 we have given
very little space to the League of Nations and the
United States ; for during these years neither one
nor the other has had a vital part in European
affairs. What the future will bring forth none
knows. But it is safe to venture the prophecy
that Europe will successfully solve her own prob-
lems as she had done in the past, and that the
role played by the League of Nations and the
Permanent Court of International Justice will be
negligible compared with the individual roles of
France and Great Britain. These two colonial
powers hold in their hands the raw materials
upon which all Europe except Russia and the
Balkans depends for its well-being. What will
*be the colonial policy of Great Britain and France
toward other European nations, especially toward
Italy and Germany? What will be their policy
toward Japan? Does not the peace of the world
depend upon how the colonial powers will solve
the problem of giving to Italy, Germany, and

Japan a fair share in the privilege of developing

609

EUROPE SINCE 1918

and trading with Asia, Africa, and other parts
of the world over which fly the British and
French flags?

If Russia were still an ally of France and Great
Britain, in sympathy with the doctrine that to
those who have should be given and from those
who have not should be taken even that which
they have, the danger of a war over raw mate-
rials and trade and emigration outlets would not
be imminent. As matters now stand earnest men
should not be devoting all their attention and ef-
fort to creating and maintaining machinery to
prevent war when no serious attention is being
paid to the great cause of war, which is, in our
generation, inequality in trade, colonization, and
investment opportunities among powers of equal
size, strength, standard of living, and produc-
tive capacity.

■

610

INDEX

Aaland Islands, 208
Abbazia conference, 285, 293
Abdul Hamid, 479-81
Abernon, Lord d', 391, 539. 543
Adalia, 151
Adana, 480
Adrianople, 425, 496
Afghanistan, 185-6, 475-7
Albania, 134-5, 145-6, 166, 282,

285, 295, 349, 520, 523
Albert, King of Belgians, 374,

545

Alexander, King of Greece,
425, 428

Alexander, King of Serbia,

278-9, 287-9
Allenstein plebiscite, 55, 85
Alsace-Lorraine, 20-1, 79-81,

121, 244, 308, 381, 551

Ambassadors, Conference of,

243-4, 431, 52Z
Angora, 430-1, 447, 454, 456,

495. 500, 503
Annunzio, G. d', 206-7, 245, 278,

347, 349. 357
Antwerp, 370, 372, 374, 376,

38r

Archangel, 182

Armenia, 35, 151, 155-6, 158,

163, 182, 451-2
Armenian massacres, 8, 189,

439. 449, 480
Armistice commission at Spa,

22

Armistice with Germany, terms

of, 14-17, 21-3
Asquith, H. H., 31, 480, 571

6

Austria-Hungary, armistice
with, 3, 7, 12, 23-4, 33, 122,
330-3

Austria, republic of, 261, 266-8,
330-45, 390

Baker, Ray Stannard, 38, 86,
1 14-16

Balfour Declaration, 153
Balfour, Secretary, 538
Balfour note on interallied

debts, 589
Balkan states 474, 491, 494
Baltic republics, 205-30, 295
Barnes, George, 31, 38
Barthou, M., 195-6
Baruch, B. N., 114, 117
Bauer, Chancellor, 55, 394
Bela Kun, 319, 322
Belgium, participation in Peace

Conference, 24-5, 42-3, 371-

3

subservient to French policy,

43. 377-8o, 537
dissatisfied with Versailles

treaty, 98
problems internal after

World War, 368-85
exaggerated claims of, 369,

375

invited to Washington Con-
ference, 510

joins France in Ruhr occu-
pation, 378, 561-84

money depreciated, 587
Benes, Dr. Edouard, 203, 259,
266-8, 270-2

INDEX

Berlin, Congress of 1878, 298,
305-7

Bessarabia, 181, 199, 203, 212,
299-302, 309-310, 520, 605

Bissolati, Senator, 347

Bliss, General T. H., 9, 13, 114,
508, 580

Bolivia, 25

Bonar Law, Premier, 539-43,

546, 562-3, 575-6
Bonomi, Premier, 341, 354
Borah, Senator, 509
Bosphorus, see Straits
Boulogne, Conference, 525-6
Boyden, R. W., 565-6
Bradbury, Sir John, 539, 543,

565

Bratiano, Premier, 38, 64-8, 98,

302, 314
Bratislava, 266
Brazil, 24, 25, 42
Briand, Premier, 356, 533, 549,

557

Britain, see Great Britain

British Dominions, participa-
tion in Peace Conference,
24, 25, 96;
in world affairs, 593, 608

British Labor party, against
peace of revenge, 31-2
opposes Ruhr occupation, 571

Brest-Litovsk, treaty of
(1918), 8, 16

Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count von,

50, 55, 389
Brusa, 425, 462
Brusiloff, General, 167
Brussels Conferences, 525-7,

532-3. 537
Bucharest, Treaty of (1913)
135-6

Bucharest, Treaty of (1918),
8, 16

Bulgaria, armistice with, 3, 4,
7, 331

6l

accepts Treaty of Neuilly, 69
loses outlet to /Egean, 135-6
Macedonia still bone of con-
tention, 136-7, 292-4
Prosperity not seriously af-
fected by World War, 139-
40

Stambulisky regime in and
its overthrow, 141 -4, 504
Revolt against treaty, 144,

294

Rumania's relations with, 295
fF.

Butler, Dr. N. M., 392

Caillaux, Joseph, 551
Canada, 38, 42, 83
Cannes Conference, 533
Caporetto, 434

Caucasus republics, 35, 182,
200, 443-4, 449, 452, 473-4,
476-7, 604-5

Cecil, Lord Robert, 84, 512

Chamberlain, Austen, 551

Chanak, 459

Charles, Hapsburg Emperor,

269, 287
Chester, Admiral, 503
Child, Ambassador, 500-1
China, participation in Peace
Conference, 24-5
Japan's intentions concern-
ing, 34, 101
championed, then deserted by

Wilson, 48
refuses to sign Versailles

Treaty, 57, 94-5, 180
renewal of dispute with Rus-
sia over Mongolia, 183-4
invited to Washington Con-
ference, 510
victim of European imperial-
ism, 499, 515
"Christian Science Monitor,"
244-5

INDEX

Cilicia, 150, 152, 156, 159, 163,

443-4, 452-3

Clemenceau, Georges, 28-31, 40,
42-3, 50-1, 57, 64-5, 97, 116,
119, 365, 421-2, 565

Coanda, General, 307

Colby, Secretary, 243

Colby note to Russia, 217-24

Communism, does not attract
outside Russia, 173
failure of in Russia, 172-6;
in Italy, 349-55; in Ger-
many, 388, 394-5 ; in Hun-
gary, 321-2; in Serbia,
287-9; m Bulgaria, 142

Constantine, King, 415, 419-20,
428-9, 432, 435

Constantinople, see Straits

Continuation conferences, 69,
160, 180, 519-43

Cordon sanitaire policy, 251

Crete, 491

Crimean War, 474

Cuba, 24-5

Cuno, Chancellor, 410-12, 574-
5, 580

Curzon, Lord, 184, 364, 457-9,
483, 494, 500-1, 539, 573,
575

Cyprus, 35, 153, 436, 491
Czechoslovakia, creation of,
24, 123-5, 257-72, 295, 333
participation of in Peace

Conference, 24-5, 42
relations with Soviet Russia,
202-3

disputes with Poland over

Teschen, 238-9
helps Austria, 341
fears Anschluss, 343
money depreciated, 587
Czernin, Count, 259

Damascus, 206, 475

Danzig corridor, 80, 86, 237,

270, 284
Dardanelles, see Straits
Degoutte, General, 568
Denikin, General, 182, 192, 194,

212-3, 239, 302
Denmark, 57, 81-2
Dmowski, Roman, 43, 233
Dodecanese, 151, 163, 347, 421,

426, 491
Dorpat, Peace of, 214

Ebert, President, 345, 387, 389,

403, 567
Ecuador, 25

Egypt, 35, 87, 100, 153, 231, 365,

469, 475-6, 491, 607
England, see Great Britain
Entente, Little see Little En-
tente

Entente Powers, unprepared-
ness for peace, 4-6
organized Peace Conference,
24-6

secret understandings among,
34-5, 48, 151

difficulties in agreeing on
other treaties after Ver-
sailles, 61-3, 69, 205-7

gain through treaty compro-
mises, 94, 129-30

sell out Serbia to Italy, 122

Balkan diplomacy of, 140-41

attempt to partition Al-
bania, 146

differ on Near Eastern policy,
150, 469-504

recognize independence of
Hedjaz, 152

use mandate scheme to dis-
tribute German colonies
and divide Ottoman Em-
pire, 156-9

prestige affected by delay of
peace with Turkey, 162

INDEX

secret oil agreement at San
Remo, 163, 524

attitude toward Soviet Rus-
sia, 169-71, 193-7, 527

intrigues in Baltic States,
201

attempt to modify Rumanian

territorial claims, 302-6
help Belgium after war, 374
generally divergent foreign
policies of, 521-43
Epirus, Northern, 163, 421
Eski Sheir, 425, 430, 443
Esthonia, 35, 200-01, 209-10,

212-14, 216-17
Eupen, 84-5, 373-4

Facta, Premier, 352, 363
Fascismo, 327, 352-5, 357-64
Feisal, Emir, 152, 159
Ferrero, Signor, 105-6
Finland, 35, 100, 199-200, 208-

9, 219, 230, 295, 590, 587
Fiume, 33, 48, 80, 86, 100, 122,

206, 278, 281, 283-4, 293,

347. 349- 363, 365, 422, 523
Foch, Marshal, 15, 25, 50, 116,

529, 532, 544
Forster Henry A., 598
Foster, Sir George, 117
France, unprepared for peace,

4-5 _

participation in Peace Con-
ference, 24, 27-31

demands against Germany
outlined during war, 27

infeudates Belgium, 42-3,
377-80

infeudates Poland, 42-3, 79-
80, 122, 231-2, 242, 244-7,
250-1, 265, 269, 487, 605-6

satisfaction with Versailles
Treaty, 97-8

length of Rhineland occu-

pation dependent upon will

of, 1 16-17
blocks renewal of German

expansion to east, 130-1
aims to become dominant

Mediterranean power, 153-

4, 364

hostile to Soviet Russia, 168,

192-4, 197, 269-70
policy toward Austria, 343
intrigues against Greece, 421-

2

treaty with Turkish Nation-
alists, 452-5

abandons Cilicia, 159, 188,
452-4

opposes Great Britain in
Near East, 469-90

attitude toward Germany ex-
plained, 544-60

occupies Ruhr, 561-89

financial weakness of, 587,
591, 595-6

foreign policy of, 605-7, 609-
10

Franchet d' Esperey, General,
156

Franklin-Bouillon, Senator, 452-

4, 460, 483
Frankfort, Treaty of (1871),

Gade, Commander, 220-23
Galicia, Eastern, 237-8, 241-4,

295. 328, 520, 604
Galicia, Western, 237
Geddes, Sir Eric, 559
Genoa Conference, 193-7, 270-

2, 534-7
George, King of Greece, 429,

435

Germany, armistice with, 3-17,
21-3

did not surrender uncondi-
tionally, 19-21, 51

INDEX

war responsibility, 8, 23, 33,

50, 54, 73, 77

blockade continued after
armistice, 16, 23, 50

■war prisoners held, 16, 23

excluded from Peace Con-
ference, 26

colonies divided among en-
emies, 34, 374

required to evacuate Posen
on renewing armistice, 46

internal conditions since
the war, 55-6, 386-414

her Drang nach Ostcn
blocked by Paris treaties,
130, 297

makes treaty with Russia at
Genoa, 194-6

resists reparation payments,
389-414, 519-543

passive resistance in Ruhr,
561-84

France's fear of, 544-560
Gibraltar, 154, 484, 487, 489
Giolitti, 348-51, 352-3, 363
Gonatas, Colonel, 435, 437
Gouraud, General, 161, 206
Great Britain, participation in
Peace Conference, 24, 31-
33

against freedom of the seas,
13-14

insists upon modification of
Polish frontiers, 47, 55,
250-1

Versailles Treaty advantage-
ous to Great Britain, 95-6,
346, 456

determined to break Ger-
many's hold on Danubian
countries, 130

policies in Near East, 151-6,
159-63, 469-90

evacuates Caucasus, 183, 185

forces treaty on Persia, 185

61

makes trade agreement with
Soviet Russia, 186

sends ultimatum to Russia,
199

policy in Baltic republics,
212-24

supremacy in Mediterranean
contested by Italy, 364, 484
attitude toward Belgium,

372-3, 379

refuses to give back to Tur-
key Mosul, 497-8

at Washington Conference,
510-16

attitude toward German rep-
arations, 524-43, 561-3, 565-
6

funds debt to United States,
588-590

financial obligations of Euro-
pean Allies toward, 591-3

present foreign policy of,
606-8

holds raw materials and col-
onizing areas, 609-10
Great Powers, former relations
to Balkans and Turkey,
148-9

Greece, participation in Peace
Conference, 24-5, 68, 98

Hellenistic ambitions of, 45,
416-9, 421, 488

expansion and debacle of,
415-41

used by Entente in Asia
Minor, 155, 161, 422-7, 432
at Lausanne Conference, 436,

438, 440, 491-504
depreciated money of, 587
Grouitch, Dr. Slavko, 279
Guatemala, 24-25

Haiti, 24, 25
Haller, 253-4
Hamburg, 406, 567

5

INDEX

Hamilton, General Sir Ian,
105

Hapsburg Empire, succession

of, 119-32
Harding, President, 191, 506-

8, 516 _

Hedjaz, kingdom of, 24, 25,
I5I-3, 159. 164-5. 465-6, 475-
6, 475, 49i, 497, 502

Hellenism, 416-9, 421 ; see also
Greece

Herriot, Senator, 197

Hindenburg, Marshal von, 330,
388

Holland, 100, 222^ 369-73, 381,

386-7, 510, 559, 572
Honduras, 24, 25
Hoover, Herbert, 508, 597
Horthy, Admiral, 326, 332
House, Colonel, E. M., 9, III,
"3

Hughes, Secretary, 458, 508-9,
514

Hussein, King, 152

Hungary the new state of, 126,

259, 266-9, 3". 315
Hymans, 42, 43, 228-9
Hythe Conference, 525-6

driven out of Albania, 146-7,

349, 523
progressively withdraws from

Asia Minor, 161, 453, 459
Russian policy of, 198, 215, 350
foreign policy of, 343, 363-6,

424, 487, 539
intrigues against Greece, 161-

2, 421-2, 432-3, 471-2
at Washington Conference,

510-12

indebtedness to United States,

537, 590. 592
demands unhampered access
to raw materials and un-
restricted immigration, 608-

9

Japan, 24, 34, 42, 101 -2, 179-80,
182, 364, 510-18, 579, 608-9
Jewry, international, 476
Jews, persecuted in Poland,
253-5

situation of in Rumania, 305-
7

Jugoslavia, see Serbia

India, 24, 25, 96, 192, 4t>5"7,

475, 607
Interallied debts, 518, 520-1,

534- 537-8, 550, 585-98
Irak, 466
Ireland, 231, 469
Ismet Pasha, 493"5- 499-501
Italy, participates in Peace Con-
ference, 24, 33-4
against Serbian expansion,
33, 47, 62-3, 122-4, 279-80,
282-85, 292-3, 349, 523
retires from Peace Confer-
ence, 48, 422
opposition in to Versailles
Treaty, 100-1

6l6

Kaiser Wilhelm II, flees to
Holland, 386-7
proposed trial of, 32, 77, 371
Karagach, 496, 504
Kattowitz, 246-8, 400-I
Kemal Pasha, see Mustafa

Kemal
Kerensky, A., 167, 170
Keynes, J. M., 117
Kiev, 239-40, 302
Klagenfurt plebiscite, 282
Knox, Senator, 73-4, 114
Kolchak, Admiral, 167, 182, 185,
192, 194, 212-3, 239, 302
Konia, 152, 161
Korfanty, 400
Kramar, M., 66, 264

INDEX

Krupp von Bohlen, 570

Lansing, Secretary, 15, 38, 113-
5

Latin America, British invest-
ments in, 593

Lausanne, Conference of, 188,
198-9, 364-6, 415, 436, 438,
440, 448, 451, 461-2, 466,
491-504, 517, 537, 539

Latin American republics, at-
titude toward Versailles
Treaty, 102-4

Latvia, 35, 200-1, 209-11, 216-
17, 240

Law, Bonar, 31, 32, 83, 539-

43, 546, 562-3, 575-6
League of Nations, proposed
by Wilson, 41
draft modified, 45
Wilson defends, 59-60
exclusion of Germany from,
75-6

gives British Empire six
votes, 96

France shows no faith in, 97

imperfectly safeguards Mon-
roe Doctrine, 103
United States refuses to enter,
106-8 506-7, 522

Lansing against, 114

intervenes to settle Serbo-
Albanian frontier, 147

ignores Near Eastern ques-
tions, 149-50, 489

fails to enforce mandatory
government in Near East,
157-9, 206, 520

important to settle Vilna
question, 225-8

helps Austria to get credits,
340

suggests Brussels Confer-
ence, 532

6l

ignores German protests, 403
offers membership to Turkey,
431

champions special rights, 489-
90

Lemburg, 247

Lenin, 171, 177, 184, 186, 202,
212, 214, 227, 360, 462

Libau, 209, 215

Liberia, 24, 25

Liebknecht, Karl, 388

Lithuania, 35, 100, 200-1, 207,
209-11, 216-17, 219-29, 233-
5, 245-6, 295

Little Entente, 251, 266-9, 287,
291-2, 326, 460, 605

Lloyd George, 31, 32-3, 38, 40,
46-47, 1 16-7, 120, 154-5, 161,
195-6, 279, 356, 365, 395,
421-4, 427, 457-9, 473, 480,
483, 524. 527, 550-3. 538-40,
546, 548-9, 562, 571

London, continuation confer-
ences in, 523, 530-2, 538-9,
542

London, Pact of, 24
London, Treaty of (1839), 370
London, Treaty of (1913), 449
London, secret treaty of
(1915), 24, 33, 34, 48, 122,
137, 15 1 -2, 346, 364, 487,
523

Luxemburg, Grand Duchy, 370,

372-3, 380
Luxemburg, Rosa, 388
Lvoff, Prince, 167, 170
Lympne conference, 527-8

Macedonia, 134, 136-8, 234, 280,

292,-4, 476, 479-8o, 491
Maestricht, 371-2
Malmedy, 84-5, 373-4
Malta, 487
Manchuria, 183

7

INDEX

Mandates, see League of Na-
tions

Marienwerder plebiscite, 55, 85
Maritza River, 135, 504
Masaryk, President, 259
Mecca, see Hedjaz
Memel, 86, 207, 209, 228-9, 246,

284, 520
Mesopotamia, British occupa-
tion of 35, 152, 159, 163,
431, 443, 467, 469, 475-6,
491, 607

Mexico, 593

Millerand, President, 161, 356
Minsk, 240
Mongolia, 183-4
Monroe Doctrine, 102-4
Montenegro, incorporated in
Serbia, 147, 275-6, 278, 282,

285, 520
Morocco, 87, 365
Mosul, 152, 443, 497-9, 604-5
Mudania armistice, 435, 460-2,

472, 492
Mussolini, 198, 352-66, 450, 462,

524, 540, 542, 576, 591
Mustafa Kernel Pasha, 161, 326,

444, 450-1, 454-62, 465, 488,

501, 504

Narutowicz, President, 253-4
Near East Relief, 440
Neuilly, Treaty of, 69, 134-40,

142-4, 282, 292, 294, 307,

426

Nicaragua, 24, 25

Niedamowski, 253-5

Nitti, Premier, 38, 100, 1 17,
161, 163, 165, 178, 203, 347-
8, 357, 391, 395. 524

Open door, real significance of,
101-2, 596, 603-5, 607-10

Orlando, Premier, 63, 100, 348,
363, 365, 421

618

Ottoman Empire, see Turkey

Paderewski, Premier, 66, 236,
238 r

Painleve, Paul, 557
Palestine, 35, 152-3, 158-9, 163,

165, 469, 476, 491
Panama, 24, 25
Panama Canal, 489
Paris, atmosphere of during

Peace Conference, 27
Paris, Conference of (1856),
298

Paris, continuation conferences
in, 402, 523, 528-9, 532, 541-
3. 563

Paris Peace Conference, 18-70,
111-18, 205-6, 281-2, 298,
307, 325-6, 334, 338, 420-4,
446, 519-20, 548, 599
Pashitch, Premier, 265, 277,

280-1, 285, 290
Pelle, General, 503
Pershing, General, 508
Persia, 35, 96, 151, 180, 184-6,

443-4, 474-7, 604-5, 607
Peru, 25

Pilsudski, Marshal, 236-7, 251-
2

Plastiras, Colonel, 435, 438
Poincare, Raymond, 40, 184,
364, 460, 483, 525, 533-4,

538-43, 546, 549, 563, 573
Poland, resurrection of, 24, 79,
123, 125, 231-56, 295-6
participation in Peace Con-
ference, 24, 25, 42, 43
real interests not considered
at Peace Oonference
79-80

wins victory over Soviet

Russia, 200-1
frontiers of, 48, 55, 233-5,

250-1, 520
Vilna seizure, 206-7, 225-8

INDEX

protests Lithuanian seizure

of Memel, 229
financial weakness of, 249-50,

587

and Upper Silesia, 400-2
dependence on France, 42-
3, 79-80, 122, 231-2 242, 244-
7, 250-1, 265, 269, 487, 605-
6

Porta Rosa Conference, 342
Portugal, 24, 25, 510
Pressburg (Bratislava), 266
Przemysl, 243

Racial equality, Japanese ask
for at Peace Conference,
101-2

Rapallo, Treaty of, 283-5, 349

Rapallo, Treaty of (Russia and
Germany), 194, 193-7, 536

Rathenau, Walter, 195

Reciprocity, denial of princi-
ple in Versailles treaty,
76-81

Reparations from Germany, 32-
3, 52-4, 91-2, 375-6, 399, 402-
13, 469, 518, 520, 525-43.
561-4, 588, 591, 596

Reparations Commission, 405,
520, 525, 539, 541, 565, 576,
591

Reval, 210, 215

Rhineland, occupation of, 18,
21-2, 79, 97, 1 16-7, 373, 404,
414, 483, 549, 557-9, 563,
569, 606

Ruhr, France threatens to oc-
cupy, 398, 404, 411, 529, 532,

534, 541-3, 546, 561
occupation of, 208, 228, 500,

561-84, 606-7
Spartacist insurrection in,

394-5

Rhodes, see Dodecanese
Riga, 209, 215

Riga, Treaty of, 201-2, 215-227,

240-2
Root, Elihu, 114
Rumania, aggrandizenment of,
24, 123, 125, 275, 295-316
participation in Peace Con-
ference, 24, 25, 64, 298-302
intervention bought by secret

treaty, 34, 122, 137, 265
protests against Treaty of St-

Germain, 64-8
annexes Bessarabia, 203, 212,
300-2

common frontier with
Poland, 241

occupies Budapest, Z99

signs treaties, 307

finances of, 587
Russia, Soviet, Entente Pow-
ers in war with, 35

excluded from Paris Peace
Conference, 57, 180

stands behind Turkey, 162-5

internal evolution and for-
eign policy of, 167-204

makes treaty with Afghani-
stan, 185, with Turkey.
187-9, 453, with Great
Britain, 186, with Ger-
many, 194-7, with Poland,
201-2, with Czechoslovakia,
270

at Lausanne Conference, 188,
198-9

at Genoa Conference, 193-7
Great Britain sends ulti-
matum to, 199
relations with Baltic states,
205-30

anti-Bolshevist movement,
211

excluded from Washington

conference, 510-12
German economic activity in,

406

INDEX

no peace for in League of

Nations, 180
Russia, Transcaucasian, 96

Saar Commission, 83
Saar Valley, 82-4, 100, 604
St.-Germain, Treaty of, 62-9,
99, 119-32, 221, 258, 265,
267, 274, 282, 288, 305-6,
335-40, 344, 426
San Remo, Conference of,
160-3, 187, 395, 424, 43i.
471-2, 523-4
San Stefano, Treaty of, 474
Scheidemann, 389, 394
Schleswig, 57, 81-2
Self-determination, violations
of principle of in Versail-
les Treaty, 81-7
in St.-Germain and Trianon
Treaties, 123 ff., 205-6
284, 304, 317-19
in Treaty of Neuilly, 137-9
in Treaty of Sevres, 205-6
in Treaty of Riga, 201-2
proclaimed by Soviet Russia,
179

Wilson's dilemma concern-
ing, 218-19
Serbia, aggrandizement of, 24,
123, 125-6, 273-294, 295-6
participation in Peace Con-
ference, 25, 42
conflict between Pan-
Serbs and Jugoslavs, 265,
276-8, 281, 286-91
Sevres, Treaty of, 162-6, 326,
424-7, 429-34, 443, 446, 459,
462, 471-2, 477-8, 484
Shantung question, 48, 50, 87,

94-5, 101, 365, 515-16
Siam, 24, 25

Siberia, 179, 182, 200, 203, 510-
11

Sikorski, General, 255

Simons, Secretary, 402, 530-1
Smuts, General, 38, 58-9, 72,

116, 157
Smyrna, Greece asked by

Big Four to occupy, 160,

365, 415, 422-5, 434-5, 443,

453, 455, 501
Spa Conference, 396-7, 525-8,

592

Stambulisky, late Premier,

141 -4, 504
Stefanik, General, 259
Straits, question of, 162, 166,

188, 198, 315, 425, 448-9,

460, 469-90, 517
Suez Canal, 475-6, 484, 487,

489

Supreme Council, 6-13, 25-6,
40, 295, 299-302, 305-6, 431,
444, 458, 522
Sweden, 100, 559, 572
Switzerland, 100, 559, 572
Sykes-Picot agreement, 35, 152,
605

Syria, French occupation of, 35,
158-9, 161, 432, 443, 491

Tardieu, Andre, 38, 116
Tchitcherin, 188, 195, 198-9
Temesvar, Banat of, 44, 126,

138, 280, 282, 298-305, 310,

324, 327, 604
Ter Meulen plan, 532-3
Teschen dispute, 44, 238, 265
Thrace, Eastern, 134-6, 162,

425, 427, 433, 435-6, 439,

443, 453, 460, 462, 479, 483,

492, 498
Thrace, Western, 135-7, 441,

447, 496-7, 504
Transiberian railway, 179, 183
Trianon, Treaty of, 69, 119-32,

258, 265, 274, 282, 288, 305,

307, 312, 317-23, 326, 344,

426

INDEX

Triest, 80, 86, 283

Tripoli, 480, 491

Trotzky, 171

Trumbich, M., 66

Turkey, armistice with, 3, 7,

150, 331, 442-3. 459
Hedjaz detached from, 24
secret understanding among
Entente Powers concern-
ing, 35, 135 _
proposed division of 148-66
future not settled by Paris

Conference, 159-60
money depreciated, 587
Turkish Nationalists, 161-2,
165-6, 187, 189, 423, 431,
440, 442-68, 491-504

Ukrainia, 35, 182, 200, 212, 237-

_ 8, 240, 244, 295, 302, 604
United States, participates in
Peace Conference, 24, 29,
44

involved in Entente war
against Soviet Russia, 35

Yankee imperialism, 102

Monroe Doctrine, 102-4

no moral leadership of, had
treaty been ratified, 104-5

refuses to ratify treaty, 106-9

protests against partition of
Albania, 146, 523

not offered mandate over
Armenia, 155-6

protests San Remo oil
agreement, 165

Persia asks for financial mis-
sion, 186

Russian policy, 217-24, 510-
11

difficulties encountered in tak-
ing sides in European
questions, 224

Finland funds debt to, 230,
588

621

refuses to refer German pro-
tests to Allied Govern-
ments, 403

refuses to recognze return of
Constantine, 429

and Panama Canal, 489

at Lausanne Conference, 500-
3

at Washington Conference,
505-18

opposition to League of Na-
tions, 506-7, 522

at Brussels Conference, 537

declines invitation to Genoa
Conference, 534

European indebtedness to,
537-8, 550, 585-98

suggested fixed indemnity at
Peace Conference, 548

duty of to help France con-
structively, 554, 557-6o

Great Britain funds debt to,
587-8

observer on Reparations
Commission declares Ver-
sailles Treaty impractic-
able, 566

has had no vital part in
European affairs since
19 1 8, 609
Unkiar Skelessi, Treaty of

(1833), 474
Upper Silesia, 55, 85-6, 207,

237, 246-7, 344, 399-402,

404, 520, 537, 604-5
Uruguay, 25

Va'ida, Premier, 312-14

Vandervelde, 38

Venizelos, E., 68, 98, 154, 160-
1, 163, 265, 415, 418-24,
427-9, 436, 438, 441, 493-4,
504

Versailles, Treaty of, 49-61, 71-
118, 160, 167, 178, 221, 228-

INDEX

9, 237, 328, 334- 337, 347,
373-5, 398, 414, 519, 523-
7, 543-5, 558, 566-7, 573-4,
601-4

Versailles, Treaty of, princi-
pal features, 74-5, 446,
461, 506

Vienna, Conference of (1815),
26, 95, 208, 219, 415

Vilna made Lithuanian cap-
ital, 210- 1 1

Vilna, question of, 201, 207,
225-8, 245-6, 344

Viviani, Premier, 356

Vladivostok, 183

Warsaw, 204, 236, 253-6, 261
Washington Conference, 180,

183, 485-6, 505-18, 550
Wei-hai-wei, 515
Weimar assembly, 389, 396
Wilson, President, war speeches
of, 4, 7-8, 13-14, 27, 35, 43,
47, 48, 104, 218
arrival in Paris, 36
distinguished between Ger-
mans and their govern-
ment, 7-8, 119
refers Germany's armistice
request to Supreme Coun-
cil, 8

curious attitude of on Polish

frontiers, 48
Fourteen Points of, 9, 10,

13-14, 21, 30, 47, 52, 283
at Peace Conference, 21, 28,

40-1, 44-9, 95, 122
Mai-"-hester speech, 30

proposes Prinkipo confer-
ence, 40

seems to break physically at
Paris, 48

ignorant of secret treaties,
48, 158

deceived on mandates ques-
tion, 157-9, 374

tries to keep Versailles terms
secret, 52

lauds treaty in statement to
press, 59-60

betrayed into defending Old
World displomacy, 66-8

denies accuracy of Peace
Conference records, 67

urges ratification of Ver-
sailles Treaty, 72, 106-7,
506

note to Austria-Hungary,
217-18

opposes Italy on Fiume ques-
tion, 48, 86, 101, 346, 365,
422

joins in asking Venizelos to
occupy Smyrna, 160, 421-
3

Wirth, Chancellor, 401, 404
Wojciechowski, President, 255
Wrangel, Baron, 154, 167, 182,
192, 194, 204, 527

Yudenitch, Genaral, 182, 192,
212-13

Zara, 283

Zeligowski and Vilna, 207, 225-
9, 245

622

27 7

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